


your love seeps in (under my skin)

by stevebuckiest



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Beefy Bucky Barnes, Body Image, Body Worship, Bottom Steve Rogers, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Domestic Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Gentleness, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Steve Rogers, Insecurity, Kinda, Living Together, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Rimming, Scars, Secrets, Showers, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Top Bucky Barnes, Weight Gain, love handles, stretch marks, very heavy on that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:15:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28782546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevebuckiest/pseuds/stevebuckiest
Summary: “There’s some things I never told you- about...this.” He gestures to his body with his hand not currently clinging on to Bucky’s for dear life. “About me.”Bucky blinks, eyes flicking down like he can see through Steve’s pajamas and get an idea of what he’s talking about. “Yeah?” He looks confused, but the pause he lets Steve take is patient.“Yeah,” Steve says quietly, shoulders curling in. “Turns out the serum didn’t exactly take care of everything, I guess.”(alternatively: steve has stretch marks)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 32
Kudos: 257





	your love seeps in (under my skin)

**Author's Note:**

> as stated in the tags, this fic rotates heavily around steve having body issues, so heed that warning with what you will! he expresses a lot of unhealthy views of himself and why he thinks he needs to keep it a secret even from bucky. most of this is based off of what i myself have dealt with & what input i got from friends, so i can’t really promise a universal experience described in what i’m writing, but i did my best to portray something realistic for myself. as usual, this fic is pretty self indulgent. not enough steve angst exists, imo! 
> 
> while writing, this fic was referred to as “stretch mark steve love handles bucky” so i think that sums it up pretty well. happy reading.

Steve’s not quite a stranger to being insecure about his body, although the argument can be made that he’s sometimes still a stranger to _this_ body altogether. _This_ body being the one he occupies now, the one he’s occupied since June of 1943 when he entered Stark’s fancy machine in the Brooklyn basement, skinny and sickly, and emerged looking shiny, new, and every bit the soldier he always wanted to be with a dose of super to go along with it. Courtesy of the serum, Steve kind of got everything he wanted and more. 

_More_ is a motif that’s run through a lot of Steve’s life since then. More of everything- money, time, expectations, attention- a lot of things Steve has now gotten (some might even say been burdened with) and sometimes still doesn’t know what to do with. He’s used to that by now, though. Come to have a few expectations of his own, right along with how the public sees him. It’s what came with this body- that gift he’d been given by Erskine and the SSR. 

It’s true that maybe back then he hadn’t been fully informed or aware of exactly how much would change past just his physicality, but that had been somewhat of a naiveness on his end, not realizing the responsibility that came with being roped in the way he was. One of a kind in power, perfect for whatever position they wanted to put him in, whether it was show pony or super soldier.

Steve doesn’t exactly feel old now, not in the way he knows a lot of other people (if not everyone, it seems like) view him, but sometimes- that serum injection feels like a lifetime ago when really it was only about seven years ago for him. It’s hard to pinpoint his exact age now outside of the hundred and something everyone else wants him to be, but he damn well remembers where he’d been at the day he’d stepped into that basement, the last time he’d been skinny and sick. _Twenty four._

He hadn’t been a child by any means, especially not compared to some of the barely eighteen year olds he found in combat around him, but compared to now...maybe he does feel old sometimes. Just not old enough to agree with all the senior citizen jokes thrown his way. 

Like he said, sometimes this body is still that of a stranger’s- he’d spent so much time in the body he’d had before, from when he was an _actual_ child right up to entering Stark’s chamber. So many years, painfully aware of every sickness and shortcoming his circumstances put him through, every ache and ailment that his Ma and Bucky had to fight to pull him out of. 

He hadn’t felt more at home in that body than he does this one, he wouldn’t say- maybe a little more in control, but even that came at the cost of throwing himself into streetside scuffles every time some asshole looked at even the air the wrong way. That body, even with all the reasons he had to hate it, had been his. Completely his, which is something that he can’t say the same about the All-American beefcake model he’s rocking now. Not that he’s mad about all that he has now- he’s not, not _really._

It’s just sometimes...he misses some of what he’d had when he was small, is all. The easiness of what it took to feel safe, the knowledge he didn’t have to keep himself safe or take care of anyone _but_ himself- and even then, if he couldn’t do that, Bucky would be around to help do it for him. That stuff had been nice, even when it was hard to accept. 

But like he also said before, he’s not a stranger to feeling insecure about his body- and with what he’d been prior to the serum...well, despite what Bucky tried to drum in with all the sweet talking and damnation of the dismissal Steve received on their attempted cover up with all those double dates, Steve damn well knows he’d had plenty to be self conscious about, according to himself as much as everyone else. 

SHIELD doctors and serum experts might give him a run for his money now, but back then, Steve knew his body better than anyone- after all, for most of his life, he’d been the only one to ever want to give it any attention. At least, that's what it felt like. Bucky’s told him more than once now that he’s been peeping at Steve from puberty up, but Steve doesn’t know if that counts since their first real kiss and the first real touch he ever got didn’t happen until he was seventeen years old. Bucky says it does. Steve’s given up on arguing about it with him. It’s all semantics anyways.

First kisses and first times aside, Steve knows what he had been working with. Bucky might have said he liked it, and sure he probably did for his own reasons- but for all that some of their moments together made Steve feel somewhat worth staring at the way Bucky did, what was to like about his crooked spine? The chronic coughing? The fact that sometimes he couldn’t even properly touch Bucky without getting the shakes because his nerves didn’t know Bucky returning his feelings and wanting his touch was now a sure thing?

Steve’s looked at the photos from back then in the Smithsonian, and to most who have seen him only as he is now, the man in them is unrecognizable. But Steve recognizes him, sometimes even still _feels_ like him. He sees himself. Can still remember what it was like to be too sick and too skinny, constantly trying to prove to himself and the world that he may have been small, but he was big enough. Might have been weak, but was still strong enough. Enough for what, he doesn’t know. Until the serum and Dr. Erskine, the world had never seen Steve as enough for anything, not outside Bucky and his Ma. 

They had seen him even back then, although not always as Steve wished they did. There was what he wanted and what he _was_. Which was limited. They knew his knobby knees didn’t keep him from getting back up, but also knew it made him easier to kick down. Knew his heart wasn’t hindering him from feeling the way he did, but also knew it made him hurt some days just to be human. 

That was what Steve loved (loves?) about them, though, even when it made him angry to admit they were right sometimes when they didn’t agree. They knew him, the good bits and the bad. The proud and the painful. They saw him for _him_ without the way the world so often wanted to write him off, even when some of his insecurities kept him from wanting to see himself. 

Sarah isn’t here anymore, God rest her soul. But by some miracle (because on good days, Steve can admit that despite the guit, he’s glad they somehow ended up here) Bucky is. And serum or not, Bucky still sees him, and that’s something Steve’s been grateful for since Azzano and all that had come after. 

He’d been so afraid back then that Bucky would take one look at all the brawn and decide to bolt, or worse, decide to stay but only because he preferred Steve’s body better this way above the awfulness he’d been forced to deal with before. It feels silly now, someone like him being scared both ways, but he _had_ been scared. So scared Bucky would see all the stars and stripes but wouldn’t see _Steve_ anymore. Wouldn’t _want_ Steve anymore, at least not for himself. 

It had taken only two gins at the tavern and a bit of goading from Steve’s own anxious end for Bucky to let him know that he still did, reassurance genuine but gently exasperated as well in that fond way from Bucky that Steve always knew meant the other man thought he was being ridiculous. 

That exasperation had been something Steve heard a lot of in their early days together at war. Whether he was falling over himself trying to figure out whether or not the Howlies would want to join his team, had his feathers ruffled from all the attention he was now receiving from everyone who had ignored him before, needed a reminder he was still human and had _been_ someone before all this- Bucky was there to help wade in and pull him out from over his head the way he always was. 

Because for all that the serum had changed, had given and taken away- Steve was still Steve, insecurities and all, bared for only Bucky to see. That was what was nice about Bucky (what _is_ nice about him)- body, time, or place, he _always_ sees Steve for Steve. 

It’s something that Steve loves and appreciates more than anything. But in times like these, he can’t help but wonder...what is there to do when Steve has parts of himself he doesn’t _want_ Bucky to see? That’s a question Steve has been wrestling with for a while now, since before the serum changed his body- a question he’s sad to admit he hadn’t had to worry about for too long when the other man was gone. But now Bucky’s back, has been since Siberia. And still, a serum and all these star crossed situations later, Steve’s still trying to figure out how to hide from the one person in the world who he wants to know him in his whole. 

It’s confusing, he knows. The fact that he wants to hide anything from Bucky after all they’ve been through together- but like he said before, Steve is still Steve, insecurities and all. He’s still got some of those- ones that Bucky doesn’t know about, even all these years later. 

He’s staring at one of them right now in the bathroom mirror, hips canted at an angle while the steam of his waiting shower fogs up the glass around his sides. The room is more humid than his and Bucky’s apartment used to get after a summer rainstorm. He’s been here a while- should probably hop inside and get cleaned up, stop wasting the water the way he knows his Ma would have once had his ass for. But he doesn’t have to worry about that problem much nowadays, and as things are, he just can’t stop _looking_. Not at this. 

He widens his stance and puts one leg in front of the other until he can feel it causing his thigh to flex, frowning in the mirror. He’s naked, having had every intention to step right inside the shower when he got in here, but as things are...well, he’s gotten a little derailed, and now, thirty minutes later, here he still is. Standing and staring straight into the mirror like he doesn’t recognize the man peering back. 

He’s done this a million times before, most of them more recently now that he has the modern luxury of full length mirrors nearly every place you could think of- bathroom, bedroom, closet- hell there’s even one in the entryway. To check one last time before you step out, Natasha had told him when he asked why they needed it there, having been the one who helped them pick out most of their decor for the new apartment in the first place. It’s also conveniently hung so that they can see into the hallway outside their apartment as soon as the door is opened- perfect for checking if there’s anyone out there waiting to surprise whoever exits. Steve doesn’t think that’s an accidental perk. Natasha’s subtle that way. 

They didn’t have many mirrors larger than a handheld for shaving during the war, and even then, that was a prized possession to hold. Bucky had had one, although he hadn’t shaved too terrible often unless they were given time off to hit the town and taverns. Razors and shaving powder were scarce enough, and who did he have to impress besides then Steve (who was pretty partial to the stubble anyways)? 

That might be part of the reason Steve is still sometimes at odds with his body, actually. Extended periods of time without getting even a glimpse at himself is already a disorienting occurrence when it happens on prolonged missions, but having that happen right after such a big change for months at a time- outside of when they were on leave and got lucky being lodged at hotels, they barely even got to wash up properly, let alone look at themselves in a mirror. 

After getting the serum though, he’d been at least awarded that privilege once the dust of Erskine dying had settled- a bit of a bittersweet reward he was given mostly out of pity, he’s pretty sure. They’d holed him up in a hotel room with a bath attached so he could wash off all the blood from watching the only man besides Bucky who’d ever looked at him like he was worth a damn die in his arms, wanting him to get his wits back about him so he could go back out and face the brass. He can remember had been a mirror there- albeit rusted and rickety, hung on the back of the door. He’d only found it once he’d crammed himself inside, feeling impossibly too large and incredulous as soon as he gazed at the glass at the _giant_ that apparently grown from what was within him.

He’d stared into that mirror like he’s staring into this one, although everything in his reflection he’d been seeing back then had been a whole lot newer than what he’s looking at now. Just like back then, he’s still not completely sure how he feels about all of it. Some parts more than others.

It’s the knock on the door that finally has him ripping his eyes away, startled out of the self scrutiny by Bucky’s voice sounding on the other side sounding slightly worried. “You almost done in there, honey?” he calls. Then, to keep from sounding like the mother hen they both know he can be, “I was gonna start the dishwasher soon but I don’t want your water to go cold.” His reason might be a bluff, but it’s still a good one. They both know Steve doesn’t have the best track record with cold water. 

For all that he’s feeling right now, Steve settles slightly at the consideration, making sure to back his way towards the shower before calling back his answer. “Just gotta wash my hair, Buck.” It isn’t technically a lie- he can settle for a two minute tits-pits-and buts rubdown if it keeps Bucky from worrying more than he probably is already. “I’ll be out in a few.”

Bucky is seemingly satisfied by the response, bumping what sounds like his flesh hand on the door once more before walking back away. “Feel free to skip putting back on all the clothes, yeah, sweetheart?” 

He’s teasing, voice playful, but Steve- Steve still freezes. The line is one of many he’s more than used to Bucky using after all these years, but right now...now it’s hitting a little too close to home for something he’d rather not think about, but similar to the staring, can’t stop doing anyways. That’s the curse of an enhanced memory, isn’t it? All that field focus filtering over into his personal life even when he’d rather it not. 

He feels almost robotic going through the motions of doing as he’d said, scrubbing off his hair and body as quick as he can to keep his mind or eyes from wandering, but washing himself clean doing nothing to wash the awful feeling of what he’s thinking away. 

Bucky hadn’t meant anything by it, he knows. It was just a joke, one he has no reason to think Steve wouldn’t have taken well- they’ve had sex before, he’s seen Steve naked, both of things that’ve happened more than once and often simultaneously. 

Just not so much since the serum- and hardly ever since Steve found Bucky in Bucharest. 

Don’t get Steve wrong- they weren’t exactly chaste during the war, although the conditions did their best to keep them that way. Catching a spare moment together to hear Bucky call him _sweetheart_ and tell him he loved him was hard enough to manage, let alone finding enough time, privacy, and space to do much more together than fumble over their clothes in the back of whatever thin walled tent Steve had been given. 

Sure, there was the odd snuck in hotel room with the windows shut, darkened woods, or under the water rubbing while washing up in a river if they got lucky. But all those things, even in their rarity, didn’t exactly give them the chance to get a good look at each other when they were busier trying to cop a feel and sink in the reassurance that being back together was real. That neither of them were going anywhere, not as long as they were with each other. It hadn’t been much, but it had been enough. 

Besides, Steve might have been sad about all their romance and rendezvous having to take place in the secrecy of the dark, but he had been used to that with what they shared even before the war. Their relationship hadn’t gotten any more illegal when they left America, but the stakes of what would happen to both of them if they ever got caught whatnot with all of Steve’s newfound fame- Steve’s grateful staying in the shadows kept them safe enough to stay side by side. 

It’s just the thing is he never told Bucky is there’s another reason he was grateful for that as well. One that’s the cause of what’s got him all jumbled up right now. 

He turns off the water once his hair is clean, hurrying out of the shower best he can before he can spiral back into what he’s trying to avoid. There’s no use in thinking about it right now, not when there’s barely a reason to. 

_Yet_ , his brain helpfully responds. 

Just like in the war, he and Bucky aren’t abstaining much from anything physical, but this time- well, they’re easing back into what they used to have. Sexually, at least. It’s hard to ease back into a love that you’ve both held for each other your entire lifetime, and even aside from that, they live together- share the same bed, same space, even the same _shower_ Steve’s in right now, everything. Just like they used to. They can’t often have much of what _used to be,_ so the few things they can regain hold of is nice. Especially when it comes to doing it with each other. 

_Doing it with each other_ in the literal sense is part of that- they’ve had sex since 1945, that’s not really a problem. Cramming in a couple of kisses on the quinjet to Siberia and sharing a singular night together in the secluded chambers T’Challa housed them in in Wakanda before Bucky went under to weed out his brain of his trigger words isn’t exactly the harlequin romance of the modern century, but like before, it was enough. Being with Bucky, sexual or not, is always going to be enough for Steve. 

He just hopes Bucky can say the same in return, because after what Steve’s been feeling tonight since he looked in that mirror, he not really sure how _easy_ easing back into things is going to be past what they’ve been doing already, at least not for a while until the habit of hiding what he has been from Bucky since 1943 kicks back into practice. 

Sometimes, Steve wryly thinks, hiding his feelings for the older man altogether had been comparatively easier. He tries to school his features before the last of the water finishes trickling from the switched off spigot, tosses on the clean pair of underwear, sweats, and long sleeve shirt he’d brought with him, and starts toweling off his hair so that by the time he’s made it to the living room where Bucky’s waiting on the couch, any dishevelment he’s showing will have an excuse. 

If Bucky suspects anything is wrong, he doesn’t say, just pats the spot next to him on the couch to invite Steve to sit. He must have started the dishwasher when he heard the water switch off, because he looks relaxed enough to not he planning on moving anytime soon, other arm stretched up behind his head as he yawns and making his flesh bicep flex so big Steve wants to pillow his head on it immediately.

Deciding to show some restraint, he doesn’t, but he does take the opportunity to climb on the couch next to him and let Bucky cuddle him up instantly against his side, metal thumb sliding cool against his still damp skin while Bucky plants a kiss to his hair, humming and breathing in the clean scent of it. 

“Pretty long shower,” he says. “You feel like scrubbing extra behind your ears or was there a different reason you were in there so long?” He’s teasing again, implication clear, but this time Steve doesn’t freeze, too content sandwiched between both kinds of Bucky’s strength to get worked back up. 

He does sigh, butting his head gently against Bucky’s jaw, shut into a smile. “Just got caught up thinking.” Better to speak in half truths when he’s avoiding something like this- Bucky will recognize a lie when he sees it, and Steve hates lying to him to begin with. He changes the subject before Bucky can get set on asking about what. “Any good shows on tonight?”

Bucky’s quiet for a moment, and Steve worries briefly that that badgering is about to begin, but the brunette just takes the remote in hand and props it on his thigh while he begins to scroll through their options on the TV. Looks like Sam’s instructions on how to work it are finally beginning to pay off. 

“Let’s see what we’ve got going, shall we?” he eventually says, and Steve breathes out easier, nodding into the bulk of Bucky’s chest where his head is now resting. 

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Let’s.”

Bucky ends up settling on a rerun on a sci-fi movie Steve crossed off his list long ago, but Steve doesn’t mind. He’d rather enjoy something a second time around if it means he gets to do it with Bucky anyways, and leaning against his side is comfortable enough even with the metal arm against his back for Steve to be content without even having to pay attention to what’s on screen. 

Steve might not often feel at home in his own body, but the truth is he always feels at home with Bucky’s no matter the why, when, or what. They’ve been back with each other for a while, only been in this apartment for a few months- but it’s already long enough to feel like home as long as Steve has Bucky here to press up against him. 

Steve’s mind goes hazy about half an hour into the movie, brain blessedly quiet from where it had been during the previous hour. Bucky’s still awake above him by the time Steve shifts to lay his head against his lap, flesh fingers sinking into blonde strands as soon as Steve’s cheek presses against his thigh. It’s nice. Bucky’s always had nice thighs, but Steve can admit that they’re especially nice lately. 

Sometimes he forgets Bucky got his own version of the serum as well- no one is really quite sure of the differences between them, but Bucky doesn’t seem to care, so why should Steve? It’s his body. Steve’s isn’t the only one that has changed over the years- really, if he looks at it a certain way, Bucky’s has had the habit of changing even more than Steve’s, just not quite as drastically. 

He’d never been as small as Steve, even as a kid, and definitely never as sickly. He’d actually been pretty hefty growing up thanks to how well off his grandparents were, but that was before the Depression hit and food got scarce enough for even Bucky’s family to be feeling the difference. He’d stayed a bit thinner after that, but his face still retained the boyishness in its cheeks even while the rest of him matured, and he might have lost enough weight after his early teen years to box at welter instead of the heavyweight he might have been if things had gone differently, but he was still big enough to take care of business no problem- whether that be while working the docks or dragging Steve’s skinny ass out of his fifth fight of the week. 

Going through training the winter before he left for war after his enlistment had seen a shift in his body as well, one that had him putting on even more muscle weight than being hired at the docks or joining the YMCA had- unfortunately weight that he’d almost completely lost by the time Steve next saw him after he shipped out the week before Steve himself got the serum. 

Azzano and the injections Bucky was subjected to...well, that’s something they still don’t talk about often, even moreso than Bucky’s time as the Soldier. Whether it’s because Bucky doesn’t remember as much or because he doesn’t want to reminisce on the first time he was stripped of his control, Steve doesn’t know. He’s not sure it matters, not to anyone other than Bucky or his therapist. He’d still been beautiful by the time Steve found him after all those weeks of what the Smithsonian has labelled as _isolation, depravation, and torture._

He’d been beautiful because he’s always beautiful to Steve, but even the rose colored glasses Steve sees him through hadn’t been enough to keep him from noticing how thin, how tired and traumatized Bucky was. Haggard. Haunted, even. 

After Azzano, after they got back to camp, after their first night back together where they both got a good look at each other’s changed bodies best they could in the low lamplight of Steve’s officer’s tent- Steve had insisted Bucky take part of the extra meal portions he himself received per Peggy and the Colonel’s orders for the serum enhanced metabolism Erskine had warned them about in his research before he died. By the time Bucky fell to what was presumed to be his own death (although Steve now strays away from using that word- Bucky is alive and well, thank you) he had gotten almost back up to his normal size, though the haunted look never quite faded away with the sight of his rib cage through his skin on the rare occasion Steve could get a good look at him with his shirt off. 

As the Soldier, Steve hadn’t really seen very much of Bucky’s body thanks to all the tac gear and perpetual aggression mode he was conditioned to stay in, but the files Natasha had given him after what happened on the Helicarrier was all said and done had photos. Ones that made Steve a little sick in the stomach to look at. He can’t bring himself to reminisce on them much outside noting the more positive fact that Bucky had decided as soon as he was free to bulk up on his bolt to Bucharest, the body most similar to where he is now, currently solid and safe keeping Steve’s head cushioned on their couch. 

He’s still changed a little from where he was then, Steve knows, even half asleep like he is right now. Gotten a little bigger, a little more solid now that he knows that he’s home and can let himself indulge, no matter if that be in eating well the way they couldn’t growing up or hitting the gym to help show himself his body is his and he can do what he wants with it, whether that be lose twenty pounds by choosing to take off the arm or decide to bulk up best he can the way he’s chosen to now. 

He doesn't flaunt it, exactly, but it’s hard not to notice when Steve’s heart sometimes focuses on nothing else. He’s proud of Bucky’s healing. Happy that he’s healthy again. Happy that he’s _here_ , more grounded than ever, mentally as well as physically. 

He’s finding his stable ground now, Steve thinks. No longer always perched on his feet and ready to run the way he always had been as the Soldier, even when his fight style reflected the opposite with how heavy and hard hitting it was, as Steve has unfortunately seen up close and personal. His own fighting style is a bit more agile, as is how he holds himself outside the field, still not used to his shoulders and the rest of him no longer being small- but he tries not to compare them on that. He’s happy for Bucky and how comfortable he’s becoming in his own skin, comfortable enough even to stroke over the nape of Steve’s neck with the metal hand he’d formerly been forced to choke him in combat with.

He’s doing that now, and Steve nudges back into it gratefully. He’ll love Bucky no matter what body he’s in or how many limbs he has, but he can’t keep from admitting he’s enjoying where he’s at right now immensely. 

Still, even with that being said...he can’t lie, not when it comes to Bucky. He’s happy, but there’s some bitterness there as well. Or jealousy, maybe. That’s probably the better word. 

He’s trying not to go back to where he’d been in the bathroom, but all this thinking about settling into one’s own skin has his own problem on the forefront of his mind again. It’s almost like he’s back in 1935 again, staring in their bathroom mirror and wishing he was someone he wasn’t. Someone who could like their body no matter what skin they were in. Someone like Bucky. 

He pushes his face into Bucky’s thigh and curls his own together to try to keep from venturing too deep into his own mind again, attempting instead to hide from it by focusing on the feeling of Bucky’s flesh fingers skirtiching at his scalp as he laughs at whatever is happening on screen right now that Steve can’t see with his eyes squeezing shut over the soft fabric of Bucky’s sweats. Bucky laughing is a precious commodity these days. Steve always does his best to properly enjoy it. 

He drifts even further from there, and before he knows it, he’s startled back to full consciousness by the sound of the credits rolling. Bucky has the volume lowered by the time Steve sits up and yawns, handling the remote in one hand while rubbing Steve’s shoulder with the other. 

“Ready for bed? You look beat, sweetheart,” he says, voice soft. He looks ready to go himself, flesh arm curling up again the way it had before when he stretches a second time, this time big enough for his chest to bulge and shirt to ride up with it. 

Steve blinks and takes in the quick sliver of Bucky’s stomach the sight awards him with, wanting to lay right back down and do something stupid, like press his face up under his shirt and go back to sleep. But going to bed is definitely the more viable option. 

“Yeah,” he eventually says, shaking down the sleeves of his shirt where they’d bunched up on his arms. He rubs a hand over his eyes after. He really is beat- it’d been a hard day at work as usual, mini meltdown in the shower aside. Luckily tomorrow they both have the day off, but he has no qualms about turning in a little early tonight. As long as it’s with Bucky. “You coming with or are you gonna shower first?”

Bucky shrugs and uses his metal hand to help pull Steve up off the couch. “I’ll shower tomorrow. I already rinsed off after the gym today.” He hasn’t properly showered since last night, but he’s always preferred to shower in the morning when he could anyways. Makes his hair look better, apparently. Steve thinks it looks nice either way, personally. 

But he’s not gonna argue the opportunity to turn in with Bucky sooner than later. He nods and turns to walk to their bedroom, Bucky following close behind him. So close their hips bump when Steve has to pause to twist the door open. 

He stiffens slightly, cheeks heating up at the contact- it’s nothing they haven’t done even since Bucky’s return, the other man always one for casual contact and affection, but Steve’s still a little on edge tonight and the touch has him suddenly feeling wide awake. Jesus. He’s being a bit sensitive, isn’t he?

Bucky doesn’t note anything off about him in the moment at least, too busy getting ready for bed like he said he would. Steve shakes off the sudden nervousness and tries to do the same for himself. 

The way they do so is always a bit different. They both still have nightmares, Steve...well, he wakes up cold sometimes, shivering himself awake thanks to the subject of a majority of his dreams. As mentioned before, he doesn’t have the greatest track record with being cold. Neither does Bucky with cryo considered, but he doesn’t seem to have the same problem with temperature, moreso plagued with the problem of not remembering his dreams or what he’s doing when he wakes up at all. 

In line with these things (and a few other that Steve doesn’t think he wants to speak about on his own end) Steve tends to sleep clothed, where Bucky tends not to. Makes it harder for him to leave the apartment when he’s out of it, he’d once explained, on the odd possibility of his nightmare addled brain making him wake up after wandering off to do so. 

Steve doesn’t really question it. Bucky can stick to his tank tops and underwear if he wants. Steve’s own long sleeves and pajama pants suit him just fine, even if they might be a little stuffy to other people. Not like anyone but Bucky sees him in them anyways, and he teases Steve about them sometimes, but he’s also said he thinks they’re cute too. 

Case and point, the grin he gives Steve now as Steve climbs into bed wearing the shirt he’d been in on the couch and his plaid pajama bottoms he’d slipped on over his boxers while Bucky was turned away to the dresser getting a clean pair of his own. 

Steve huffs and reclines back against his side of the pillows, arms crossed self consciously as Bucky’s eyes remain on him. “What’re you looking at, Barnes?”

Bucky hums and shuts the drawer he’d taken his boxers out of. “You.” He’s shameless about it, even as he’s taking off his own sweats and giving Steve plenty to look at before he eventually averts his eyes while Bucky slips out of and then into his underwear. Jesus. Steve wants to look, but it doesn’t seem fair when he’s not sure he could let Bucky do the same himself.

Doesn’t mean he isn’t curious about what there is to see there, though.

For now, he clears his throat, thankful their bedroom is dark enough to conceal the flush he knows is climbing his neck. “Can I help you with something, then?”

“‘Course you can, sugar.” Bucky takes the attempted fire back as an invitation, grinning even wider as he pulls off his shirt and temporarily shrouds his face from Steve’s view- he’ll never get tired of looking at his smile, although this time around on Bucky’s stripping he doesn’t choose to avert his eyes as the fullness of the form Bucky’s been working hard to achieve is revealed. 

He looks good- always looks good- but this version of him is such a clear reflection of his healing that Steve can’t help but swallow. He doesn’t stare every night- but he feels like tonight he has can’t take his eyes away, ironically in a way that’s both similar and completely different from how he’d been staring at himself in the bathroom mirror earlier. 

Like Steve said, Bucky before the war as a man wasn’t able to afford to not be on the leaner side, even with how hard he worked hitting the docks and Y alike. He was more lean muscle than anything. Now, he’d pretty much the opposite- he and Steve both can afford to eat well, have the health to do what they want with their bodies, and Bucky, for the first time in the better part of a century now has the room to finally take back up the space with the stability he was both deprived of at Hydra’s hands. Steve can’t blame him for taking advantage of that- and similar to how he’d had a secret soft spot in the war for Bucky’s stubble, he has one for how Bucky carries himself right now. 

His serum had made him strong, made muscle easier to put on, but it hadn’t directly made him...big the way Steve’s had done to him. Bucky is the one responsible for that, responsible for all of his healing, even if he says Steve is part of his reason to want to do that in the first place. 

It shows, both in his stature and how he holds himself as well. He’s just as broad as Steve had found him in Bucharest, though he’s cleaned up his beard and cut his hair a couple times since then. It’s still long enough to tuck behind his ears, but barely brushing his neck now. Along with that, he’s ditched the red henley and ill fitting jeans out for clothing more comfortable, usually something soft. Sweats and a t-shirt, unless he has to leave the apartment (and in that case, skinny jeans are something Steve has grown to appreciate even more after seeing them on Bucky’s thighs). Those clothes make it a lot easier for Steve to appreciate what he’s looking at how. 

Sometimes he feels guilty for gazing at what Bucky’s made of his body for more than just the reason of being glad he’s here to begin with- but Bucky’s always been art to him, and that’s something that especially hasn’t stopped now. Not with the view Steve has. 

Bucky’s turned to the side while he strips his shirt off, already preemptively preparing to toss it into their hamper that sits in the corner, and like this, Steve can see both the ripple of his back and the shadow of his chest hair in the low light of their room. It’s nice, Bucky being able to have that second part back- any reason Hydra had to keep him hairless can’t have been good and...well, Steve is glad that’s just one less thing they were able to take away from him. He can still remember how proud Bucky had been at age fourteen showing the first of his grown in body hair off, as silly as it sounds. They were kids. They were allowed to be silly. 

This Bucky, though- this Bucky is all man. Not the exact same man Steve watched him grow up into before the war and all of what happened after hit, the same man he fell in love with nonetheless. No matter what skin he’s in, that’ll always be what he is for Steve first and foremost to anything. 

He has the decency to at least avert his eyes once Bucky’s shirt fully comes off, and is planning to keep it at that- but Bucky seems to be taking a different course of his nightly routine tonight. The tank top he’s been wearing to bed this week remains draped over the bench on the foot of the bed in favor of Bucky taking aim to toss the shirt he’d worn during the day into the hamper and turning to bed obviously planning to get inside shirtless. 

Steve, par for the course tonight, freezes again and immediately flashes back to the first time Bucky had done this in the thirties under the guise of skin on skin contact to warm Steve when he was sick. Steve can’t remember the last time Bucky slept like this- maybe night after Azzano where the Howlies all got hotel rooms and Steve snuck him over to share a bed. 

It shouldn’t be a big deal- isn’t, really, besides maybe the milestone of Bucky feeling able to be vulnerable enough to rest this way. But still Steve can’t help from going a little wide eyed as Bucky walks over, eyes trained on the slight swell of his thickened waist over the elastic of his underwear. 

Back when Steve found him in Bucharest, holed up in his patchwork place of an apartment, he’d been bulked up, on an entirely different level than the last time Steve saw him before he broke the surface of falling into the Potomac. But even then, it had mostly been all hard muscle- it’s hard to eat well and gain weight when you’re constantly on the move, Steve knows, especially when most of your muscle comes from that movement in the first place. 

He’s still just as muscular (if not moreso, with how hard he hits the gym even when they’re not on the job) but now, now that he’s home and able to eat well, move without worrying about not being able to stop or be forced into doing things he doesn’t want- he’s less hard. Soft, even. Especially around the edges. That’s exactly what Steve is looking at now, even as Bucky gets both thighs up on his side of the bed and braces himself on them to slide under the covers next to Steve. 

According to the episodes of _Friends_ Sharon had recommended he watch, what he’s looking at are called love handles. Makes sense, because Steve loves Bucky a lot. 

He’d had to google the term after he heard it mentioned thanks to all the slang he’d missed out on watching be coined while unconscious under the ice, hadn’t really thought much of it besides noting that he didn’t happen to have them himself. But Bucky having them now- that’s something he does more than note. Hell, he could write a whole essay on all of the other man if someone asked (all the offers he’s gotten of people wanting to write his biography don’t count, he doesn’t think). 

It’s just nice, knowing Bucky is happy and healthy enough to let himself be a little soft. Sadly the sight of his bare torso slips under the covers with the rest of him, but Steve doesn’t have too long to deject about that (or blush about Bucky being shirtless in bed with him at all, for that matter) before Bucky and his lack of a shirt are leaning over to pull him into a kiss that suggests it isn’t just bidding him goodnight. Even Steve’s out of sorts mind tonight can’t keep him from melting into it.

They’ve kissed a lot since Bucky’s stint in Wakanda ended. Really that’s been most of the extent of what they’ve done after that besides a few half fumbled handjobs in the dark if one of them wakes up wanting- Steve doesn’t mind. Necking is nice. Safe. Reminds him of how things used to be back in the forties when they spent most of nights doing the same on the ratty sofa in their apartment.

Bucky presses a second kiss to his neck now, moving closer so that his metal hand is cupping the side of Steve’s face almost reverently. Steve’s breath hitches at the rasp of Bucky’s breath and his beard both ghosting against his skin, can feel himself falling into it, but first he has to ask-

“What’s brought this on?” He can hear just how hoarse his voice sounds, Bucky huffing against his throat after.

He bites down lightly before answering. “Just wanted to kiss my sweetheart some, yeah? That a problem?” His hair is still pulled back into a low ponytail from earlier in the day, but it’s loosened enough by now for strands to be tickling against the sides of Steve’s neck. 

“Never a problem, Buck.” Steve squirms at the sensation, and then moves even more when Bucky takes advantage of initiating his own movement to roll his way from his own side of the bed to between Steve’s pajama clad legs, which spread open wider to accommodate his width, softness and all. 

Bucky’s upper half is weighing him down a little like this, metal length of his prosthetic arm hard pressing against Steve’s side where everything else about the exchange is soft enough to have Steve sighing happily into it, his own hands curling up to rest on the tops of Bucky’s mismatched shoulders. It’s nice, slow and sweet and everything that Steve wishes they had been able to share over the years Bucky was gone. 

But Bucky isn’t gone anymore, and Steve gladly chooses to focus on that over anything else. He lets Bucky lead the exchange while holding on tight to him instead, bare skin revealed by his lack of a shirt warm and solid under Steve’s fingertips. He’s happy. Healthy. _Here_. 

There’s no forgetting that, not with how close they are kissing like this, not with Bucky sucking marks into his skin- something in Steve settles at that although he knows they won’t last. Superficial marks on his skin never do thanks to the serum- well, most of them anyways, but he doesn’t let that train of thought make his mind wander away from where he’s secured under Bucky’s body.

He lets his hands travel up at the same time Bucky’s lips do until his palms are resting delicately on the sides of Bucky's neck while the brunette resumes kissing Steve’s lips like his life depends on it, lips parting as he presses in even closer. Steve sinks further down into the pillows with the motion gratefully, groans into Bucky’s mouth when he slips his tongue inside, and feels his mind go blissfully blank until-

Bucky, in an attempt to deepen what’s quickly become a less than modest makeout session, sets most of his weight on his left side, raising the hand of his right to slide up to the top of Steve’s thigh and sit on a spot that even through the fabric of his pants has Steve (yet _again_ ) freezing like he’s been dunked back into the Arctic. 

He wishes he could say he isn’t sure why- but really, he can’t, because he knows _exactly_ what has him stiffening up. And he knows it has everything to do with the same reason he’d been dead set on staring up into that steamed up mirror before his shower. 

This time, Bucky notices something is off immediately- although Steve guesses it’d be hard for him not to considering how close they are. He could probably _feel_ Steve’s thigh tensing up underneath him, because his hand is lifting up off it a moment later to brush Steve’s bangs out of his face instead, looking concerned enough for the lines etched in his forehead to deepen. 

Steve hates that he’s relieved about that- losing Bucky’s touch is never something he wants to be grateful over, but he can’t help it, not when it comes to this. _This_ being what he intended to keep hidden- something he used to be a lot better at, he might add, although things like _war_ and _illegality_ might’ve had something to do with that. 

Neither of those things are applicable here, but somehow Steve still feels as scared as he did some of the times back then right now, which doesn’t make much sense- it’s Bucky. He’s never scared of him, never has been, not even when he was the Soldier. Because that wasn’t him, not really. 

The Soldier wouldn’t be looking at Steve the way Bucky is right now, pale blue eyes searching Steve’s with a gentle worry that would make Steve’s heart warm if he wasn’t feeling so guilty about being the one who caused that worry to begin with. 

“Steve,” he says, voice quiet. “You okay? I do something you didn’t like?” He hesitates, hand hovering over his cheek. “I push you too far?”

Steve swallows and has to gather himself before he answers. Bucky’s body is still blanketing his, just as secure, but now- the way it has his legs pushed apart is making things feel very vulnerable too, an awareness Steve wishes he could shy away from. Go back to a few seconds ago when he wasn’t so caught up again. 

It seems like this...problem is one that’s proving harder to hide away from this time around. 

To answer Bucky, though- he has to choose his words carefully. The answer is complicated. _Yes_ , would be the short answer, but not the complete one. Not an accurate one. This isn’t about Bucky, not really. It’s about Steve, which might sound selfish (that’s what it feels like, anyways) but it’s true. This is _his_ secret. _His_ sore spot. _His_ insecurity. 

He can’t bring himself to tell Bucky that yet, though. Maybe it’s cowardly, but- he wants to hide a little longer. So he gives him another half truth, one that comes out equally as quiet as Bucky’s question.

“No, Buck- Just...tired. Like you said, I’m beat.” He tries to sound convincing, because he _is_ tired- but not only just physically. Emotionally, too, but he doesn’t need Bucky to know that. The kissing was nice. Not his fault Steve got caught up in his own head again. 

Bucky still looks concerned, but doesn’t protest the sudden cut off, just cups Steve’s cheek and gives him one last gentle kiss that this time is a clear signifier of _goodnight_. “Rain check after we get some sleep?” he says, obviously trying to lighten the mood even as he’s rolling away. Or as far away as he can get when sharing the same bed, anyways. 

“Deal.” Steve smiles faintly and unfreezes himself enough to roll over himself and press a goodnight kiss of his own to Bucky’s shoulder- half out of normalcy and half because he wants the other man to know it’s still ok to touch him. He’s caught up, but- he still wants to cuddle. Can’t really rest well without it anymore.

Bucky seems to get the hint, humming and letting them both move until he’s hugging Steve from behind the way he normally does to spoon him. They both like to sleep this way- it’s safe. Secure, in the different ways they both seem to need nowadays. 

Steve tries to relax into it, the heavy weight of Bucky’s metal arm across him with the softness of his skin and the blanket both sandwiched between underneath. He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job at hiding again, is even back to halfway asleep- until, damn his luck tonight- he’s hauled right back out of that by the motion of Bucky lifting a leg up and slinging it half on top of one of Steve’s own. 

It’s how he usually holds him when they sleep like this, nothing out of the ordinary- but it’s done in a way tonight that makes Steve _wonder_ , even as Bucky is pressing a kiss to the back of his neck and bidding him a final goodnight, out loud this time. 

“Night, Stevie,” he says, voice soft and sleepy. “Love you.” That’s always the last thing he says before he lets himself drift off.

Steve’s own end of that comes out a bit strained, although sincere in sentiment. “Night, Buck. Love you back.” The other man’s breathing slows after that until Steve is almost sure he’s gone straight to sleep.

Steve wishes he could say the same, but as things are...he has some _things_ to think about. So much for shower thoughts stopping after his shower, huh?

He sighs and tries to stop feeling like he’s about to crawl out of his skin, but it’s to no avail. Like he said, the curse of a serum enhanced memory. 

The serum is one of those things he’s thinking about though, isn’t it? Or at least part of it- part of the problem, because although the serum has been advertised as a fix all of sorts, Steve stil can vouch that he has plenty of those. 

Sure, the serum did fix a lot- straightened Steve’s spine, stopped the strain on his heart, made him big and strong rather than small and sickly. Made him the hero he wanted to be rather than the hindrance the back of his mind always told him that he was. 

But it left him with other things too, some that he already had before he stepped inside Stark's contraption and some that only appeared after stumbling his way out. It hadn’t fixed _everything_ , and in some cases- it’ actually to blame for others. The general public just isn’t aware of that fact. They have a hard time seeing Steve as _human_ minus the super part. 

Hell, Bucky knows Steve is human, has seen most of his struggles even post serum up close and personal- but in the instance of what Steve is thinking about now- Bucky isn’t aware either, at least not to Steve’s knowledge. There’s an improbable possibility there he does, but it’s one Steve doesn’t like to think about. He doesn’t really like thinking about this in general.

_This_ being one of those insecurities he mentioned before. One that the serum didn’t correct so much as cause. 

Contrary to popular belief- contrary to many popular beliefs, actually- the serum didn’t make Steve get bigger _everywhere,_ didn’t smooth out all the kinks, didn’t break all the bad habits. Steve doesn’t have asthma anymore, but (according to Bucky, and Sam wherever they used to pull all nighters looking for him) Steve still snores. He doesn’t have scoliosis anymore, but he still has the habit of hunching his shoulders in when he’s stressed. He doesn’t have sinusitis anymore, but some days his anxiety (something he’d dealt with even before the serum and his stint in the war) is so bad, his hands shake in a way that even his rheumatic fever hadn’t made him see. 

The serum wasn’t just skin deep- but with that being said, it actually didn’t smooth out everything on the surface, either. 

The bump in Steve’s nose is something that Bucky is particularly smug about the serum not taking, since he’s the one that is responsible for it and all (on _accident-_ he might grin about it nowadays but when it actually happened, Steve can remember him bawling at the rough age of nine years old into Sarah’s apron strings about how he hadn’t meant to hurt Steve with his accidental elbow to the face). There’s still a faint scar on his forearm from where he sliced it open breaking the cookie jar standing on a chair to get into it as a kid. 

Steve’s not sure why- Dr. Erskine was the one who knew the serum best, and since he died before any explanations or studying could be completed, there hadn’t been many answers. Howard was a scientist, but not someone Steve wanted to ask about things so trivial. Peggy was smart, but Steve didn’t exactly feel comfortable discussing his body with a lady or _anyone_ who looked at him like a guinea pig. 

He’s no scientist himself, but he suspects it’s because they’d been injuries already healed well before he signed on with the SSR, so the serum didn’t need to take care of them as something so minor in comparison to the rest of him. He’s made his peace with those parts of him. He understands why they’re still on him- likes that they are, even. Helps remind him he was someone before the serum, someone who was hurt and healed on his own. Someone who is still himself- in part, still Bucky’s- down to the bone.

Some of the other parts of him, though…he can’t say he feels the same about them. Not by a longshot. 

Like he said- not all of him got bigger with the serum, though a lot of him did, which was undeniably one of the points of taking it in the first place- a scrawny super soldier isn’t one that exactly strikes fear into the enemies’ hearts or faith in those he’s supposed to protect. 

That hadn’t been a problem, though, not when he came out the other end a good ten inches taller and 145 of mostly muscle mass heavier, biceps bulging and chest heaving with pecs protruding out further than any other man’s Steve had ever seen. Not that he was exactly looking at many other men topless besides Bucky at that point (or this one, truth be told), but he’d been making the rounds at recruitment centers and seen enough to know his body was a bit of an outlier. This time around in what was considered a good way, at least to other people. To Steve, too, mostly. 

Mostly. 

See, the problem is, a lot of him did get bigger- all at once, like every growth spurt Steve had wished he’d gotten but never had hit him. He can’t detail exactly what getting the serum felt like, not because he can’t remember, but because it had been excruciating. 

“ _Did it hurt?”_ Bucky had once asked, right after he first saw his lover’s new body, still at Azzano.

Steve, like most moments in the war, had been a little preoccupied, but had found the time to hesitate and answer back, “ _A little_ ”. That had been putting it lightly. 

The process had felt like every inch of him was being split open, spread apart, then seared back together. Erskine hadn’t lied- that penicillin shot’s sting had been a mere fraction of the pain to come with what happened after. What happened after being becoming- _this_. Captain America. A super soldier. What Howard called _human perfection._

Perfection is a little bit of a stretch, Steve would say- but that’s the problem, isn’t it? Perfection and stretching both. 

The marks on his thighs are proof enough for Steve to know the former isn’t true. _Perfection_. He doesn’t wager anyone who says he’s _perfect_ pictures the part of his body’s he’s thinking about now when they say it. He doubts stretch marks are what anyone thinks of when they think of Steve- because Steve isn’t Steve, not in the big picture. He’s _Captain America,_ larger than life. _Getting_ larger was what caused this problem, even while it solved all the rest. 

When getting the serum, he hadn’t stripped down completely. He’s taken off his shirt, shoes, even socks, but had been allowed to keep on his khakis when getting in the chamber for the sake of modesty- which is a good thing, looking back, considering he’d had to sprint into the street and chase down his first Nazi only seconds after stepping out. He’d definitely come out the other end feeling a little cramped by the material- even the shirt he’d gotten to throw back on before Erskine got shot had been about ten times tighter than he remembered it being before- but by some miracle nothing had split a seam by the time he got to slow down and let the doctors check him over. 

His first wound in this body- under his arm caused by getting _shot_ at for the first time- had healed by the time Howard convinced his higher ups to put Steve in the hotel. The one with the mirror. That had been the first time Steve got a good look at himself- got a good look at _this-_ these...things on his thighs, his hips, his ass that _weren’t_ going away, weren’t healing. That still haven’t. 

Now, here in bed with Bucky, in his _home_ and not that god forsaken hotel- Steve tries to stay still, tries not to squirm in Bucky’s hold lest he wake him up from where he’s soundly sleeping. Steve doesn’t need to see this time around to know what’s sitting on his skin, but that doesn’t keep him from still feeling like he’s about to crawl out of it. 

He squeezes his own thighs together like the movement might make the marks go away, or at least get them off his mind. But all it does is make Bucky’s leg shift down on him more, and that in turn serves to make a thought surface in the back of his mind that only gives him even more to think about. As if he isn’t already tired enough of having to think today in the first place.

He wonders if maybe Bucky has any marks that are the same.

When Steve first got a look at his new body naked in that hotel mirror, he’d thought he’d known what to expect just by seeing it on the outside. He’d assumed he’d agree with what everyone else seemed to think- thoughts that were very clear based on how everyone looked at him now. How Peggy- previously so closed off of professional- touched him, right out in the open without so much as pausing to ask. He thought he’d agree with them. He thought he’d be fixed. _Perfect,_ like Howard said. 

Yeah, well. He’d been wrong. They’d been wrong, although they never knew that- there hadn’t been time for them to find out, not with how he became second priority to Phillips when the serum was destroyed, more show pony than the prize product of the enhanced army they’d been promised but never got. There hadn’t been anyone for Steve to even _ask_ about what he found when he first pushed his pants down, not with Erskine dead and Steve’s shyness at an all time high the way it was after the serum with all his newfound attention and expectations. 

He’s sure someone must know now, with how many times he’s woken up dressed in clothing that wasn’t his- that had been one of his first thoughts waking up off the ice, actually, right after the obligatory _where am I? What’s going on? Who did this to me?_

_Who_ knows _?_

It was a secret he’d been carrying a long time. One he still carries now, because the marks may have faded over time, now silver like the scar on his arm- but they’re still there. Steve’s come to dread that they always will be. 

Upon first discovery, they had been a different color- red. Easily seen against the smooth canvas that was the rest of his skin, the rest of what was supposed to be his body- the rest of what apparently _was,_ now. His eyes had been drawn to them in seconds, too soon after thinking maybe, for once, everything was going to be ok. He’d no longer have any reasons to be insecure- he’d been hoping the serum would take all that away. It hadn’t. 

Instead, he’d simply found himself saddled with a new type of insecurity- one that was funnily enough the exact opposite of what he’d dealt with before. Rather than hating himself for being too small, he was worried about being too big. Really, sometimes he’s still worried about being too big. 

Back then, he hadn’t known what the marks were, only knew that when his khakis hit the floor there were lines striping his skin- particularly the skin of his hips, ass, and thighs. He’s grateful for that, at least, in a way. When he’d come out of the chamber still without his shirt on, nothing wrong had shown above his waist. He’d been written down as the perfect human specimen, a bonafide super soldier, with the body and brawn of one to boot. That’s what they’d all said, at least, nurses going on about it while he’d had his blood drawn after Erskine’s killer bit the dust. 

He’d believed them. Right up until he’d seen the marks stopping that from being true before he could even get settled back into his own skin of the body he’d been given. Years later, he’s still not sure he’s ever settled. 

Steve takes in a shaky breath and slides down a slow hand to rest against his lower hip where he knows some of the marks reside still, hidden away under the fabric of his pajama pants. He’s careful with it- Bucky’s arm is still across him, and he may not be as light a sleeper as he was right after coming back (how could he be, with the paranoia he’s still trying to push through?), but even now Steve doesn’t want to be the cause of jolting him out of a much deserved rest. 

It’s not like Steve can feel the marks- they never hurt, not even right after the serum (he should know with how much time he spent poking and prodding at them- he’s lucky his bruises don’t last as long as they used to) but he’s memorized exactly where they all are by now, no enhanced memory needed. Being the only one that knows about them- that makes it easy enough to remember. 

The feeling of his fingertips pressing against the patches of skin where he knows the marks sit is familiar, almost as familiar as the feeling of Bucky’s bulk pressing up behind him. This isn’t his first time doing this- he’s been doing it since 1941, after all, but admittedly it’s been especially lately. 

He’s been thinking extra about the possibility of Bucky seeing the marks since he got back. Before then, between waking up and Bucky coming back, Steve hadn’t really had a reason to dwell on it much past how he felt about them in extension to himself- he hadn’t had to worry about anyone seeing them when Bucky was gone because Steve didn’t _want_ anyone else to see him in general, not in the way that would expose where his insecurities were. Bucky’s his person, alive or dead, this body or the next. It’s always been that way. 

It might seem impossible that Bucky doesn’t know about them already, with being Steve’s proclaimed person and how well he knows him in general- but like Steve said before, they were at war. There wasn’t exactly time or space to warrant a head to toe inspection of Steve’s new body, not when all their rendezvous had to take place in the shadows to start with. 

Besides, Steve didn’t meet up with Bucky until four months after he got the serum anyways- which on the bright side gave him plenty of time to see the marks on his hips pale from pink to silver, and on the other gave him even more time to stew in the possibility that now maybe he was too big for Bucky to want anymore. 

Always a catch, huh?

Truthfully, watching the marks fade had left Steve hoping they’d heal and go away completely like the rest of his injuries seemed to thanks to the serum. Maybe he’d been grasping at straws, but it had made sense to him at the time- the serum healed almost everything else, so why not this? Why would there be something _new_ on this body where there wasn’t a problem before?

It wasn’t until he woke up here- in this century, he means- that he was able to find an answer for that and the question of what the marks were- _are-_ in the first place. He didn’t exactly have much to go off of before. 

Steve, like Bucky, grew up in the Depression, though he knows even outside of that he most likely would have still been sickly. But maybe not as skinny. With things as they were, though, he was skinny- always had been before Project Rebirth, even as a child. _Especially_ as a child, considering how many doctors he was dragged into seeing when they still were trying to figure out all that was wrong with him. 

For all the poking and the prodding he gives himself now, he’d been used to that well before everything- up until he was seventeen, the doctors were the only ones who had ever seen him naked barring his Ma when he was little, the only ones who touched him half the time. No one else had a reason to besides Bucky, really, and even then- what Steve considered _real_ touch didn’t happen until he reached the age of said seventeen and Bucky finally sucked it up enough to kiss him. It had taken a while for them to get to the point of _more-_ more enough to see each other past their skivvies, Steve means- and still when that happened, like most of their relationship, it had to take place in the shadows. Or at least with the curtains shut. 

Besides his own body, Bucky’s is the only one he ever saw in such a manner that wasn’t simply another sketch in his art books. Steve isn’t a stick in the mud, but he doesn’t exactly have that much experience with seeing other people naked either. 

Plus, after the serum and all it’s side effects hit- Erskine was dead. Who was there for Steve to be comfortable enough with to ask questions that he didn’t know how to phrase in the first place? Phillips was already disappointed that all he got out of the whole ordeal was Steve, and that was when everyone was under the impression he was _perfect_. Shattering what little success they thought they had got- Steve didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want them to know, so he just kept it to himself, and that’s how his secret first started out. 

He’s not sure he meant to keep it this long, but life has a funny way of playing out. 

He’d put off searching for answers in this century, too, for a while. Besides the fact he had to learn how to use a computer...this is the one part of life he allows himself to be a coward in. He’d been _scared._ Still is, somewhat. He didn’t want to know what the marks were- didn’t want to find out there might be something wrong worse than what he’d already thought all those years. 

He had gotten as far as googling _red lines on thighs_ before calling it quits. As soon as he saw the answer at the top of the page and read his way through the description- something along the lines of _when the connective fibers of the skin stretch too much, they can tear and leave a mark, a scar that may initially appear as red or purple_ \- he knew had found it. What was wrong. He couldn’t close the page fast enough after that. 

It makes sense to him now, in a way, why the marks are still there, how they ended up there in the first place. Even if he still hates them. Still feels like they don’t belong. 

When it was injected, the serum already had a substantial amount of work cut out with taking care of fixing all of Steve’s other imperfections while also getting him sturdier and stronger. He was pretty literally stretching at the seams- and since (according to Google) the marks are tears under the skin occuring in the process of getting bigger, they healed in the same manner his bullet wound later had but didn’t go away the way things like his heart murmur did because they were taken care of after the initial injection, _because_ of the injection in the first place. 

So much for it being a fix all. Steve knows objectively his body isn’t near as fucked up as it was before, but- he hates it. Hates that part of himself, and god damn it if he isn’t going to do everything he can to hide it away. It’s just harder now that Bucky’s _here-_ to stay, this time even. Hopefully they’ll have all the time in the world to enjoy that. Steve just wishes it didn’t have to be this way, but hiding is a habit by now. 

He hadn’t known what the marks were in the beginning- all he knew was he was supposed to be perfect, people kept saying they were counting on him, and while he wasn’t sure what those things on his hips and thighs were- he didn’t want to share it. Especially when he was still so scared of Bucky not wanting him in this body to begin with. 

Bucky huffing in his sleep is what draws Steve back to the present, out from his little reverie of self pity and back to the question he’d had at hand before spiraling- he wonders again if Bucky has any stretch marks of his own. If Steve’s alone in this...flaw overlooked by the serum. They both got it, after all- Bucky didn’t get too much bigger (not in the way he’s made happen himself recently, at least) compared to how much stretching Steve himself had to go through but...he could have them, right? Steve might not be the only one? 

That sentiment is a little too hopeful for Steve to be happy with. 

Bucky’s deep enough into his sleep for Steve to feel able to risk the heavy sigh he lets out, shifting in the other man’s hold to draw his hand back up from where it had been pushing into the skin of his thigh. He glances at the clock, a look that turns into a glare when he sees how late it’s gotten. 

_Jesus._ It’s been well over an hour of him wallowing this way. He needs to get some sleep before Bucky really has a reason to ask what’s wrong. He shuts his eyes and tries to settle, both back into his skin and the softness of Bucky’s behind him. Even with his shirt off, he’s warm, just the way Steve likes to sleep. 

It’s hard to drift off with how jumbled up he is, but that in itself is exhausting enough to have his body ready to rest even while his mind is still trying to work- but eventually he’s slipping off to sleep right as Bucky’s metal fingers, warmed from pressing against Steve’s side, slip down to his hip as the other man shifts in his own sleep. Steve registers the movement, but doesn’t have much left in his consciousness to let it work him back up. 

He’s tired. The marks aren’t going anywhere. He can think about it tomorrow. For now he doesn’t have to try and hide. 

-

The next morning when he wakes up, his mind is blessedly blank, but only for about three seconds after he wakes up to what feels like late morning. He’s startled out of the sweet space between sleep and starting his day not by falling back into the fixation of yesterday’s worries, for once, but by the desperate urge to take a piss. Even super soldier bladders have boundaries, and all. 

He’s got a muzzy sense of focus when he flings the covers off and stumbles out of bed, but is perceptive enough to pick up on the fact that Bucky is no longer sleeping on the other side of the bed, sheets still rumpled where he was laying but cold mow to the touch when Steve drags his fingers across them on his way climbing out of bed. 

It doesn’t take long to figure out where he is. Steve can hear the water for the shower running as soon as he approaches the bathroom door- it’s a pretty familiar sound considering how long he spent surrounded by it for yesterday’s staring. And listen, maybe if he were more awake and _less_ close to wetting his pajama pants, he’d go to the guest bathroom on the other side of the apartment- but as things are, he’s still half asleep and trying not to squirm, so taking advantage of the fact he knows Bucky no longer locks ever door after entry, he thumps his hand on the wood the same way Bucky did to him yesterday before pushing inside and making a beeline straight for the toilet. 

Bucky’s still humming his way through what Steve assumes is shampooing his hair (God knows they have enough products lining the tub for him to have his choice at what he uses). The curtain is opaque, so Steve only hesitates a moment before shoving down his pants to complete his intended task, though Bucky’s voice floating out behind it once he hears Steve shuffling around still sounds close enough to make Steve jump. 

“Morning, sweets. You have breakfast yet?”

Talking to his boyfriend in the shower- while taking a piss, no less- is grossly domestic, Steve thinks. They never did this back in their first apartment because of the communal bathroom situation popular in most forties complexes, and knowing what they’re both doing now makes his answer come out a bit stuttered, but he gets it out nonetheless. 

“Not yet,” he calls back, trying to hurry and get his pants back up as soon as possible. He doesn’t know why- Bucky isn’t looking at him, or anything. He supposes he’s just used to hiding. “I just woke up. You?”

“Had some coffee before I hopped in here, but no.” Steve can hear Bucky set something back down on the shower shelf while he’s speaking. “I was gonna say- Sharon texted. Said she and Nat were going out to brunch, wanted to know if we were free to come? It’s pretty late to be eating breakfast anyways.”

Steve stiffens when he catches a glimpse of silver on his hip while putting his pants back up, trying not to sound too tense when he answers. The offer is appealing enough to make that relatively easy. He likes seeing their friends as often as he can- they aren’t always in town at the same time, with Sam and Sharon living in DC. 

“That sounds good. They say where?” He should probably see if he’s supposed to wear something nicer than the usual tight t-shirts he dons on the weekends. 

“Apollo’s Diner. In about two hours.” Plenty of time for Bucky’s hair to dry, then. 

Steve flushes the toilet and moves to go wash his hands, nodding even though he knows Bucky can’t see him but still slightly flustered at the thought of talking to him like this. It’s been a while since he shared his space with anyone, and although he’s used to that _anyone_ being Bucky- it’s still been a while. He likes it, though. Even if it’s a little awkward sometimes, slipping back into habits both new and old. 

He brushes his teeth as quickly as he can, mouthwash still stinging his gums when he speaks to Bucky next. “Any coffee left in the kitchen?” He’s patting his hands dry on the towel when it happens, brain not even having time to process the sound of the spigot being cranked off before the curtain is being yanked open by a metal arm attached to a dripping wet body that Steve’s eyes land on immediately. 

_Oh._

For reasons very different than what had happened yesterday, Steve freezes. Bucky is...very bare. Very _blatantly_ bare- their bathroom has a window in the corner and besides the sun coming from that, the lights are on and- Jesus. Steve feels like he’s about to pass out. This is the first time he’s seen Bucky so unabashedly loose with himself since 1941. This is the first time he’s seen him like this outside a darkened space since- God, since well before he fell. 

Steve’s not a prude- and in the ways he maybe is, he always has his reasons. But seeing Bucky like this after all this time, so near and naked and nonchalant about it is...it’s something. 

Steve’s positive his face is beet red. He hadn’t even looked when Bucky changed his briefs last night, but in this instance he can’t _help_ but let himself do so. Bucky’s not exactly being shy. 

He’s grinning even, bold and boyish, shaking his hair out over the tub before lifting his leg to so over the rim of it and getting Steve’s heart racing at the sight of his thighs moving fluid through the flex of the motion. His voice is cocky when he speaks. “See something you like?”

_Yes._ Steve sees a lot of things he likes- there’s a lot _to_ like about how Bucky looks like this, love aside. He’s ridiculously handsome even on his bad days, but now…

Steve tries not to get too distracted by the sight of Bucky’s abdomen flexing as he reaches over to grab his towel, but it’s hard when as dry as Steve’s mouth is feeling- Bucky’s body is looking exactly the opposite, droplets tracking down to tangle in his chest hair and softness of his sides slick enough with water for Steve to be tempted to lean down and lick it off. 

He swallows and tries to remember the question enough to answer it. “Uh…”

Bucky doesn’t bother to let him bumble his way through a response, just laughs and starts patting his pecs dry with a towel that to Steve looks much smaller than he can remember it being when he used it himself. “Real smooth, sweetheart.” That’s sarcasm. Steve has never been smooth. 

Bucky, though- he’s smooth. In more than just the proverbial sense picked up by his talent with the ladies (though his use of that on them is long gone with the likes of Steve now in his bed). Steve’s trying not to stare, he really is, but when a drop of water falls from where it was clinging to the hair of Bucky’s chest and traces down to that of his happy trail- Steve can’t help but watch it, eyes widening when it makes its way down to where all that smooth skin gives way to something a bit differently textured between his legs. 

He’s seen it before, obviously- done a lot more than _just_ see it- but like he said, they’ve been easing back into things. And Steve, for all that he wants to take it slow- he can’t help but think _easing into it_ is exactly what he wants Bucky to do with him this morning. Bucky’s expression is hungry enough for Steve to think he’d be happy with that suggestion (as if Steve in _pajama pants_ is as hot of a sight as this).

The hopefulness of that possibility and the heat building up in Steve’s stomach the longer he looks is so promising that all the hesitation and thoughts of hiding seem to be buried in the back of his mind- and he’s about to say something, about to finally let Bucky sweep him away-

But then, Bucky twists to hang his towel back up, one thigh pushing forward while his hips cant to the side- the exact position Steve had taken to stare at himself yesterday- and Steve remembers. Steve _sees_. 

Or rather, he doesn’t see, because there’s nothing there to notice. Not like there is on him. Bucky’s thighs and hips are the same as the rest of him barring the metal arm- strong and tanned. Smooth. Not a stretch mark in sight.

It’s silly, but Steve has to turn away quickly and splash water on his face to keep his eyes from pricking, dropping them to the floor once he turns back. Suddenly, he no longer feels like looking. He’d been hoping...well, he doesn’t know exactly what he’d been hoping for. Bucky’s always been fairly big. 

Even his smile is big now as he steps closer to Steve, apparently taking his ducked down head and sudden shyness as signs of being flustered about wanting to move forward. And Steve _does-_ he does, but he doesn’t know if he can. 

If he keeps going on like this, he doesn’t know if he ever will be able to again. That thought is a little terrifying, more so than any insecurity he’s ever had. 

He sucks in a shaky breath and darts his eyes to the side. “I’ll- I’ll be out in the bedroom. Should get ready for brunch.” 

Bucky looks endeared by the awkwardness from Steve he’s come to expect by now, nodding and pressing close enough to plant a kiss against Steve’s hair, still fluffed up from sleep. Makes him look like a lion, Bucky always says. 

“I’ll be out in a sec. Just gotta brush my teeth.” 

Steve nods jerkily at the response, already turning to push out of the door and dash his way back across to their room. He takes a moment to breathe once he makes it back to sit on his side of their bed. 

He’s not sure what to do, here. On one hand...he wants to be able to be with Bucky again without having to confine them both to the shadows the way they’d had to suffer before. On the other...admitting the secret the serum has left him sitting on (quite literally) feels impossible. He’s scared, and that makes him hate himself more than any sicknesses or stretch marks ever could. 

He must get lost in his head again for the next few minutes, because soon enough he hears Bucky’s footsteps rocking towards their room and is looking up to see him looming in the doorway, luckily this time with at least a pair of briefs on he must have brought with him to the shower. 

Steve almost smiles at the sight of him soft around the edges again, but quite can’t bring himself too. He just blushes instead, knees bowing in where he’s sat criss cross on the mattress. 

Bucky only waits a beat before padding up to his side of the bed as well, smile still in place. “You know, we have a few hours to kill,” he drawls, dipping his hand down to run through Steve’s hair and get it to stick up more. His tone is clearly suggestive. “And I haven’t given my guy his proper good morning kiss yet. What do you say I get on that?” Then, lifting his knee up to push on the bed and plop his way in front of Steve, “Or maybe just get on _you_ instead?”

That’s a proposition if Steve has ever heard one- and he’s heard _many_ from this man. 

He’s shameless about it too, placing his flesh hand on Steve’s knee and squeezing through the material while he waits for an answer. 

Said answer clogs its way up in Steve’s throat- he feels cornered. Not physically, Bucky would never intentionally put him in that position on purpose, too familiar with it himself with all past circumstances. No, Steve feels cornered in the way he always does leading up to a confrontation- only this time, for once, isn’t one he wants to have. 

Now is normally the time he’d try to hide, find an excuse or at least curl up under the covers. They do that sometimes in the mornings, when Steve feels like he can take a chance, but in this instance- the curtains are open already, light pouring in even brighter than it had been in the bathroom. Steve sitting on top of the comforter feeling very much the opposite, Bucky leaning in for a kiss on the lips that leaves Steve’s lags bracketing his thighs. Like this, there’s no way Bucky wouldn’t _see_.

His eyes are shut at least while they kiss, a sweet exchange that has Steve sighing into Bucky’s mouth even through all his other stiffness. He tastes like toothpaste, smells like shampoo and the body scrub Nat gave them for Christmas- it’s nice, as morning kisses go. Gentle. Guided. _Good_. Steve can’t help but let him nudge his way into it, head feeling hazy, almost like he’s half asleep again. 

He barely notices Bucky pressing him back into the pillows, letting the bulk if his waist spread open Steve’s thighs- but once the realization (and the arousal) hits, he’s breaking away with a choked off noise that’s practically a whimper. 

Bucky chuckles at it, recognizing the wanting half more than the other. Steve doesn’t blame him- in any other situation Steve _would_ want this- _does_. He just…

His words come out a whisper. “I don’t know how to do this.” He’s not even sure he means to say it, but he does, and his heart sinks at the same time the burden of hiding the marks he bears seems to lessen. He’s just goddamn so tired of pretending. Of being _perfect._

Bucky must pick up on his discomfort a little, but approaches it the same way he always did back in the day when every time they fell into the same bed led to Steve experiencing one of his firsts. He teases. 

“Sure you do, baby. ‘S been a while, but you know the way.” He kisses Steve’s shoulder on his way to situating himself more comfortably between his legs with clear intent, body stretching out behind until he’s eye level with Steve’s stomach and sitting so close to what Steve’s afraid for him to see that Steve can feel himself shake. “I’ll take care of you. Always do, don’t I?” 

He does. Has since they were kids. Steve sucks in a breath and tells him as much. “Yeah, Buck,” he says softly. “You do, I just- that’s not-“ He can’t make the words come out the way he wants to, maybe because he wishes they didn’t have to come out at all. 

But maybe they do. Maybe that’s what all this has been building up to. Steve’s never been the best liar- it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? Now that they don’t have to hide the way Steve is still trying to hide himself. 

Bucky’s looking at him now, eyes concerned. He reaches his hand up to tangle with where Steve’s is holding onto his shoulder. “Hey, what’s up, Stevie? Something wrong? You need me to slow down?” 

He sounds so worried Steve wants to cry at being the one to cause it, but that would only be worse, would make Bucky feel like he doesn’t want him- and Steve can’t have that, not for another second. 

“Maybe, ah- Maybe if we got under the covers?” he offers weakly. 

Bucky narrows his eyes at him, using his other hand to brush back a strand of still damp hair out of his face. He looks suspicious, sounding the same when he speaks. “We can do that, if that’s what you want, but- why exactly do want it that way?”

The worry still works its way into his voice, and Steve has to close his eyes. It’s all suddenly too much. Steve feels like he’s crashing over the edge of something important, skin too tight for him to properly think, which will be what he blames the stutter that slips out into his words on later. 

“I-“ 

He has to grip Bucky’s fingers tighter before he can fight his way through. Jesus fucking Christ, he’s fought monsters more scary than this. He’s _Captain America_. He needs to suck it up. His answer, though- that comes out all Steve Rogers. 

“There’s some things I never told you- about...this.” He gestures to his body with his hand not currently clinging on to Bucky’s for dear life. “About me.”

Bucky blinks, eyes flicking down like he can see through Steve’s pajamas and get an idea of what he’s talking about. “Yeah?” He looks confused, but the pause he lets Steve take is patient.

“Yeah,” Steve says quietly, shoulders curling in. “Turns out the serum didn’t exactly take care of everything, I guess.”

Bucky strokes his thumb over the skin of Steve’s knuckles, touch calming enough for Steve to feel a little less cornered. The confession is being coaxed out, it seems. Bucky still sounds sure to be careful when he speaks. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, honey, as long as you know you _can_ ,” he reassures softly. “But I have to know- is it something that’s hurting you? Is it something I can help?”

The desire to keep Steve from hurting over everything is so on par with how Bucky’s always been that Steve has to duck his head down just to give Bucky a watery smile where he’s still propped between his legs. 

“Not physically,” he promises. Then, less sure, “I guess it’s just...hard.” He huffs and rolls his eyes when Bucky gives him a wink and glance down to his crotch obviously meant to lighten the mood. “Not that, jerk.”

“Then what?” Bucky gives his hand an encouraging squeeze upon further hesitation. “You know you can tell me anything. Show me, too.” 

That second part might be easier, actually. Steve’s never really been the best with words when he’s not giving speeches meant to help save the world- and saying what’s wrong as well as showing…Steve doesn’t know if he can manage both. He hasn’t even had _breakfast,_ for Christ's sake, although that’s likely lucky for what Bucky has been hinting at wanting to do. 

He takes in a deep breath and nods, eyes closed. “I can- scoot back for a second?” he says, voice shy and small in a way it almost never sounds nowadays. “I have to…” _Take my pants off_ gets stuck in his throat. 

“I can close my eyes?” Bucky offers, sitting back up on his legs like Steve asked. Steve has to keep himself from getting sidetracked by the sight of his thighs spreading out even thicker at the pressure, his sides doing the same settled above the waistband of his underwear. “Whatever makes you comfortable.”

Steve relaxes slightly at the consideration and squeezes before letting his hand slip out of Bucky’s hold. “Just for a second.”

“‘S’fine by me.” Bucky complies with the request, eyes falling shut while Steve begins to fumble with the drawstring of his pajama pants, pushing them down and off alongside with the boxers he’s wearing underneath until they pile on the floor with a plop. Steve takes in another deep breath and debates for a moment before deciding to keep his shirt on- the security might be a little stupid, but he’s already feeling vulnerable enough. He tugs down on the hem of it self consciously for a moment, still feeling a little scared of what he’s about to let Bucky see. 

There’s no taking it back, after this. Not once the secret’s out- and listen, he knows Bucky most likely won’t so openly judge him for it, but that doesn’t mean Steve doesn’t judge himself. Besides, Bucky is the most important person on the planet to him. No matter how sure of anything Steve is when it comes to him- there’s always going to be a bit of apprehension there as well. He’s already lost him more than once- he doesn’t think he could bear to do it again. 

Steve knows Bucky loves him. But he knows he doesn’t want to lose that, either. 

_Here goes nothing._

Steve tries to steady his breathing, sinking back into the pillows like if anything goes wrong they’ll help him disappear. But he can’t think about that- not when he’s so close to letting Bucky back in. He sighs, words wavering with his nerves the slightest amount when they come out. “You can look.”

Bucky has always been more patient than Steve, so taking the courtesy to do so slowly comes easy. He blinks open and takes the time to give Steve a soft smile before dropping his gaze and doing as given permission, taking in the sight of Steve’s exposed thighs with an expression that’s not easy to read. Bucky’s the perceptive sort. There’s no question that he knows what he’s supposed to be seeing, even without Steve having to say. 

The marks are easily visible like this in a way Steve had made sure they never were before, silver hue of them almost shining in the sunlight coming through the window. Steve is pale, has always been, but these marks are paler. Sitting like this, Bucky can only catch sight of those on the meat of his hips and the tops of his thighs, can’t yet see those striping the other side- but his silence is enough for Steve to know he’s gotten the message even without a rotated view. 

The silence doesn’t last for more than thirty seconds- and thank god for that, because even that has Steve’s stomach turning with something he hasn’t felt since their first time in 1935, and that was _before_ people started expecting perfection from him in every aspect of his life. Bucky stares, mouth sealed shut, but settles on the answer he’d been searching for sooner than later, looking up at Steve with an expression that looks to be a sad smile. 

“Steve,” he says, gentle and gut wrenchingly genuine. “Has this been what’s bothering you?” At Steve’s guarded nod, he sighs and lowers himself back down slowly, encroaching back in on Steve’s now bared body with a speed that suggests he’s trying not to scare him off. “Oh, honey.”

Steve doesn’t know if he should expect Bucky to know what they are- Steve hadn’t, after all- so he stumbles out a weak explanation best he can. “They’re called stretch marks.” He laughs, a bit brittle. “Guess I was just too stubborn for even the serum to take care of completely.” Because they both know he’s always had a problem with that. Before, more than after, but still. Even now. 

It’s a dumb joke, one that Bucky doesn’t laugh at. He ghosts his flesh hand up Steve’s calf instead, stopping to sit it on the top of his knee just shy of where the faintest marks begin by his wrist. “Can I?”

Steve has to swallow and steel his nerves, but ends up nodding, fighting the urge to curl his knees in the closer Bucky gets to settling back between them. Proximity to his junk aside, the whole thing has him feeling jittery. “Yeah- I….if you want.”

Because even now, Steve is a little scared he won’t. Want, that is. 

Bucky doesn’t let him worry on that too much longer before he’s bringing his hand up and cupping it gently on the outside of Steve’s thigh so he can stroke a soft thumb over the silver streaking his skin. He’s staring, but somehow not in a way that makes Steve feel scared. 

Really, at the first sweep of touch against the marks that isn’t his own- all Steve can think is he feels _seen._

Bucky’s looking at him not like he’s broken, but like he’s beautiful, and part of Steve feels foolish for doubting so long at the same time the rest of him is still doing just that.

Bucky leans in and presses a kiss to Steve’s knee, using his metal hand to rub over the length of Steve’s other thigh as well. “Can’t believe I never noticed,” he whispers, words spoken into Steve’s skin between the space of placing another kiss, this time higher. 

“To be fair, I wasn’t exactly keen on letting you see,” Steve says back quietly, breath hitching when the tips of Bucky’s still drying hair brush against his thigh the closer he leans in. 

Bucky huffs, hot against where he has him held. “Not that, stupid.” His voice softens. “I wouldn’ta said anything ‘til you were ready to talk about them even if I had noticed. I’m talking about how uncomfortable you are.” He props his chin on Steve’s knee and looks up at him almost apologetically. “You’re my best guy, Steve. I should’ve seen something was eating you up. All these years…” He sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” Steve hurries to tell him, heels tilting in enough to dig into the softness lining Bucky’s sides in an unconscious effort to keep him from leaving, as if the lax hold of his shoulders suggests he’d want to do so in the first place. Circumstances considered, Bucky still looks more than happy to be between Steve’s legs. “I was trying to...hide. And that was about me, not you.” He clears his throat to keep it from closing back up again. “Besides, there wasn't exactly much time for you to take for all _that_ that we weren’t already stealing. S’just how things were, Buck. That’s not your fault.”

They always had to take advantage of what little they had growing up, time or otherwise. That’s how it always was. Bucky knows that, and he agrees, looking reluctant but nodding nonetheless. 

“And now?” he asks, clarifying when Steve gives him a confused look. “Do you still feel like you need to hide now?”

Steve has to think for a moment, Bucky rubbing at his leg almost absently to help him through it. “I think...not anymore,” he finally answers, quiet and careful. “I don’t want to have to. Not from you, or myself- or-“ He has to take in a deep breath, Bucky’s metal hand sliding to his waist to get through the wait. “I don’t know how to do this,” he says again. “Not without….” _Hiding_ goes unsaid. 

Bucky, as always, has an answer. “I’ll help you through it.” He smiles, the same smile he’d given Steve the first time they both found him between his legs, and Steve’s heart aches with just how much he had to miss this- miss _him_. “That’s what I’m here for.”

Steve searches his face for a moment and finds only sincerity, smiling back tentatively and making a soft sound when Bucky strokes his thumb back over the marks on his thigh. “Thank you.” His words come out just as sincere. 

Bucky shrugs and rolls his eyes, metal arm gleaming in the sunlight with the motion. “Pal, you don’t have to thank me for something like this. I love you.” He gives Steve a look, locking their eyes together and moving his prosthetic hand to hold Steve’s and move them both up to his shoulder. “And you’ve been doing the same for me ever since I got back.”

Steve frowns, even as he feels the stress sapping its from from his body with Bucky’s words. “What?”

That pulls a look from Bucky full of exasperation. He squeezes his fingers in on top of Steve and raises an eyebrow like he’s waiting for the message to sink in, Steve absentmindedly kneading his knuckles in on top of the scar tissue and- _oh._ He gets it now. 

Bucky must see that he does, because he’s huffing and burying his head on Steve’s bare thigh to laugh out loud a moment later, chill bumps popping up from the feeling of his beard brushing against skin. “Jesus, Stevie,” he says. “How many times have you seen my shoulder by now? You don’t think any less of _me_ for it, do you?”

Steve shakes his head, slightly sheepish. It’s true- Bucky, for understandable reasons, has reservations about medical visits in general. Medical visits _alone_ are pretty much completely out of the question, so most times, Steve tags along with him to help keep him calm. As calm as he can be with someone poking around his arm, anyways. The amount of years he’d had to go with people doing that _without_ permission- they show, if not in the stiff way Bucky holds himself during trips to the doctors, in the scarring as well. 

They’re red, scratchy- almost similar to how Steve’s stretch marks had been in the first bit, but rough and raised in a way they aren’t. Burns from the sparks as they soldered the arm on, is Steve’s best guess, although he tries not not to guess at all. He doesn’t shy away from them, exactly, not with how often they’re in his sights now that Bucky is more comfortable with the arm and carrying about his day in shirts that have his shoulders showing. But he doesn’t speak much about them either. There’s not much to say other than they’re a part of Bucky that shows what he’s been through, and that’s something that’s beautiful in a way Steve doesn’t consider the marks on his own skin to have ever achieved. 

Bucky’s looking at them like they do more than that though, following that up by leaning in and pressing down a kiss right over top where the tip of his thumb is resting. It makes Steve’s breath catch in his throat, butterflies feeling like they’re beating against his ribcage. 

He’s pretty sure it’s a bad cliche now, someone kissing your scars before sex (or whatever it is they’ll end up doing in the time they have left before brunch) but that’s not how it feels with Bucky. It feels...nice. Loving. A lot of other things Steve wished for while hiding in the shadows but never expected to get. He is getting it, though, and happily at that. Bucky’s grin from against his hip when he looks up from another line of kisses only makes his heart feel even lighter. 

This isn’t making him _like_ the marks, per se. It’s too soon for that to be the case, but with Bucky smiling and loving up on one of the biggest insecurities he’s ever had...Steve thinks that maybe, he’ll get there one day. 

Bucky, for his part, seems to be there already, kisses pressed to soft skin turning sucking the sweeter Steve goes for him. The feeling of it paired with the sight of Bucky’s mouth moving against the marks has Steve struggling to stay still- he’s feeling good, great, even. But exposed as well still, especially with how bare his bottom half is with Bucky’s bulk shouldered between his thighs. Feeling _good_ hasn’t exactly left him from being unaffected by all the kissing, either. 

He might not be the prude Stark always says he is, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get shy, either. Especially with Bucky looking up at him the way he is, half lidded and lazily.

Luckily, Bucky seems to pick up on it, shifting his hand down to squeeze at Steve’s knee. “You still want under the covers?” He sounds understanding. 

Steve loves him for it. “Yeah,” he exhales. He’s just- not sure he’s ready to be so...open with it yet after so much time spent hiding. But, he’s come this far. He might as well take a step in the right direction regardless. So, bearing that in mind, he speaks up again softly. “Maybe...maybe just the sheets, though?”

Bucky gives him a smile and another squeeze, shifting his body with a sigh that Steve can feel flex his side against the sole of his foot, still resting on Bucky’s lower back. “Gonna let me taste you?” he teases, tongue licking a stripe up the line of one of the marks on his inner thigh after. “I did skip breakfast and all.”

Steve groans at the line, pushing his foot into the padding of Bucky’s side with a halfhearted kick. “ _Buck_.”

“ _Stevie_ ,” Bucky croons back, laughing when Steve’s heel digs into a love handle once again. “Fine, punk- we better get this show on the road before Sharon sends out an SOS when we’re late for brunch.”

Steve huffs but scoots up and to the side so Bucky can throw the comforter back and peel the sheets up from underneath him. “Captain America is never late.”

“Steve Rogers sometimes is, if I remember right,” Bucky shoots back, sliding sideways under the sheets to get situated. “We’ll see where you’re at after I take care of you. Might not even make it out the door.”

“Big words,” Steve tries to smart back, but the snark ends in a sigh once Bucky starts sucking a mark- one that’s red, rather than silver- into his thigh. 

Bucky grins up at him, sheets bunched around the broadness of his shoulders. “Yeah, well,” he sinks his teeth briefly into the meat of Steve’s inner thigh, getting him to let out a noise that is _not a squeak, thank you very much,_ and spread his legs open further. “I’m a big boy.”

That he is- it’s a shame Steve can’t see his body like this, but that’s the price he pays for being shy about this he guesses. He knows Bucky will let him see whatever he wants later, anyways. 

He catches his bottom lip between his teeth, hands sliding to both of Bucky’s mismatched shoulders while the other man works on tugging the fabric of their sheets over his head with one last final look that’s followed by a wink that has Steve’s stomach flipping. “Love you,” he gets out, just before he loses sight of him. 

Steve can’t see him anymore, but he can sure as hell hear Bucky’s responding “love you back” and furthermore _feel_ the kiss he lays right over the center of him that follows. 

It’s not the first time they’ve done this- that milestone goes to the summer of 1935- but it’s been a while. More than a while- wasn’t much time in the war for Steve to wash up enough to feel comfortable subjecting Bucky to this, not to mention the whole recently addressed hiding habit he’s been holding since even before then. But now- well, now Steve doesn’t think anyone (not that anyone else is going to be hearing about this if he can help it) can blame him for letting out the gasp that he does, followed by a groan as Bucky wastes no time in getting right down to it. 

They have at least an hour before they _really_ need to start getting ready to meet Nat and Sharon, but Steve isn’t really thinking about either of them or time management right now, not when Bucky’s mouth is on him the way that it is.

Not wasting time doesn’t keep him from teasing, though- with Bucky, nothing does. Not when it comes to Steve. He’s got a tight grip on both of Steve’s legs to keep him spread open, skin almost as warm against Steve’s calves as his face is at the sight of the sheet shifting as Bucky kisses his way between his thighs and takes care of him as promised. 

Steve can feel his cock twitching when Bucky’s tongue first flicks against him, breathy noise breaking free at the familiar yet forgeign feeling of it. Asking Bucky to be under the sheets for this might’ve been a smart move- Christ, Steve can’t even see what he’s doing and he feels like he’s already ready to combust. 

What Bucky _is_ doing is dipping his tongue in against Steve’s rim, so slow and soft that Steve can’t help but rock down- or he would, if Bucky weren’t using his hands to hold him still. 

The brunette chuckles underneath the sheets, beard scratching up right against the sensitive skin of Steve’s thigh and pulling out a quiet sound. “Someone’s eager,” he hums, and God- the vibrations make Steve want to shove his face in the pillows. 

Lolling his head to the side, he does that best he can. “Someone’s _teasing_ ,” he grumps back, finishing off with a groan once Bucky flicks his tongue over again, this time followed by a stubbly kiss to each inside of his cheeks. “You’re an asshole.”

“You are what you eat.” Steve knows the remark is coming before it does, but that doesn’t keep Bucky from rushing it out anyways- and if Steve could see him, he _knows_ he would be smirking. He probably still is. 

“Buck-“ Steve’s complaint turns into a moan that’s embarrassingly loud at the surprise of Bucky purposefully dragging his tongue from his tailbone to the base of his balls. “Oh-“

Bucky does it again, then again, and again, sweep of it narrowing in each time he passes over until he’s left licking over Steve’s rim like his life depends on it. Steve back arches, arousal jolting its way through him as Bucky finally points his tongue to probe the barest amount inside, beard rasping against smooth skin, most likely marking Steve up in a manner that will last well past lunch time even with the serum’s effects. 

And speaking of marks- Bucky’s attention (and Steve’s) may be elsewhere for now, but apparently even mouthing over Steve’s hole with fervor, Bucky can multitask. He’s fucking Steve with his tongue, getting fucking _filthy_ with it, so filthy Steve almost wishes he’d asked to turn the fan on to keep the noises from coming out so clear- but even then, his spread out fingertips (of both materials) haven’t moved far, still pressed reassuringly against the marks on Steve’s hips and thighs like he’s assuring him the acceptance is real. 

The weight of that has Steve’s eyes watering from more than just the frustration Bucky’s teasing is making him feel- he squeezes them shut at the same time he echoes the motion with his fingers, pulling Bucky closer and canting his legs open wider to get across the gratitude he’s feeling on his own end. He knows Bucky said he didn’t have to thank him- but that doesn’t mean Steve isn’t going to let him know he _trusts_ him with this too. 

Bucky makes a satisfied sound, still working his way through getting Steve slick with his mouth, and presses so close his nose nudges up against what feels like the edge of that sweet spot right through Steve’s skin. Steve cries out, and in the back of his brain (the part that’s still working right now, anyways) thinks he got the message across. 

Bucky lets him know out loud anyways, easing back off lapping his tongue over the softened edge of Steve’s entrance to speak. “Know you can’t see what I see,” he murmurs, mouth pressing up against where Steve knows there’s a mark etched into the meat of his thigh. “‘Least not right now.” His voice implied he means more than just because of the sheet _._ “But I gotta tell you- Every time I look at you I can’t believe my fucking _luck_ , sweetheart.”

_We don’t have a lot of that,_ Steve wants to joke, but he doesn’t, because Bucky sounds like he has more to say. And Steve- Steve wants to hear it. 

“I’ve been looking at you a long time, too, Steven Grant,” Bucky tells him lowly. “My whole damn life, even when there wasn’t much of _me_ left living it.” 

Then, just as Steve is thinking about doing it himself, there’s a shine of metal in the sunlight when Bucky lifts the sheet off his head to duck out and look Steve dead in the eye. His mouth is glossy from what he’s been getting up to under there, hair mussed, face flushed- but as beautiful as that is, it’s not what Steve’s focus is on, not when Bucky’s eyes are on him burning with something fiercely loyal. 

“I’ll always see you for you, no matter what body you’re in, you know that?” Bucky lays his hand flat on Steve’s chest, like the metal can pick up on his heartbeat through the material of his shirt the way his other hand used to back in Brooklyn when the only thing Steve’s heart seemed to be good for was loving him back. “Pants down or not- you could have never let me see you like this again and I would have loved you regardless. I would have _seen_ you regardless.” He smiles. “Seeing your face beaten black and blue broke me though a century of brainwashing, and you think a few stretch marks would be what makes me bolt?”

Steve laughs wetly, letting Bucky grab one of his wrists to push up his sleeve and plant a soft kiss over the pulse point. “I’m kinda stupid like that.”

Bucky shakes his head. “‘S not stupid for you to feel insecure. I do too, sometimes.” He gives him a look. “What’s stupid is thinking you couldn’t share that, punk. You’re my person. We’re supposed to handle problems _together_.”

Steve sighs and then shifts as Bucky uses his hand still under the sheets to stroke a thumb over where Bucky’s mouth has gotten him slick, a teasing distraction that has Steve’s answer both harder to think of and more honest when it comes out. “Guess I just thought- the serum was supposed to make me perfect. Admitting to anything that would make people think otherwise...felt like I was letting them down. Letting myself down.” He shudders once Bucky’s thumb slips fully inside, the rest of his words coming out resultingly softer. “Hurts to be human, sometimes, when everyone else says that you’re not.”

“Yeah, well, you might be a hero, but last time I checked your anatomy-“ Bucky makes a show of ducking back down under the sheets, giving him a soft kiss right above where his thumb is seated before coming back up. “You’re still a human. Pretty hot one, at that.” He winks.

Steve laughs, then lets out a sound when that shift has Bucky’s thumb sliding in deeper. “Yeah?”

Bucky hums and slides back down, this time keeping the sheets shrugged over his shoulders. Steve shivers when the cool air hits him, but doesn’t have it in him to complain. He just lets his eyes close as Bucky’s mouth gets back on him, suckling gentle kisses into the skin between his thighs- then groans when he pulls back again, breath ghosting over where he wants his most. 

Bucky chuckles, hot and heady. “Guess _tiger_ could be an apt nickname, though.” Steve scrunches his eyebrows up, but doesn’t have to ask before Bucky is supplying him with an explanation. “I know your hair is a little more lion-like, but c’mon- fierce, fiery, sexy.” He kisses one of Steve’s hips, silver hand sliding down to sit against silver marks. “You’ve got the stripes and everything.”

Steve lets out a noise that’s annoyed and needy in equal amounts, though the fondness of the comment has him flushing. “Bucky,” he whines, heel digging in love handle once again. “Said you were gonna take care of me. Don’t make me wait ‘til dinner.”

“We could eat out?” Bucky offers, only to pull his thumb free and lick over Steve once again. “I know I sure am.” 

Steve kicks him a second time, pulling out a peel of laughter that shouldn’t feel as pleasant as it does let out while Bucky is doing as implied in his (horrible, crude, very unfunny) joke. But the vibrations- Steve can’t even be bothered to be embarrassed by the sound they have him letting out. Bucky’s been teasing too long. He’s allowed to be a little bit strung out. 

Bucky’s finally deciding to show mercy, it seems, because he finally shuts back up for more than five seconds in order to lean down and get back to it- Steve isn’t sure what their endgame is here, but he also isn’t sure it matters when Bucky is fucking him with his tongue the way he is right now, soft and slick and perfectly sweet. 

What _isn’t_ soft, though- that’s just as sweet when Bucky gets a hand around it, stroking over Steve’s cock like making him feel good is his singular focus. It isn’t, though- it might be the main one, but the controlled rocking of the bed while Bucky works his own hips into the mattress doesn’t go unnoticed. In fact, it has Steve _wanting,_ even more than what he’s getting with Bucky’s mouth and hand working him over. 

He tells Bucky as much, though it comes out in gasps between the gentle pull of his mouth sucking over Steve’s hole, tongue flickering out to tease. “Buck,” he says, high and strained. “Buck-“

Bucky pulls off at the second call of his name, voice rough. “What, sunshine?”

Steve’s request is simple enough and nothing they haven’t done before, but he still falters when it comes to saying it out loud. He’s never been good with words like this. “I-“ He swallows, eyes opening to catch sight of Bucky kissing a line up the outside of his thigh, clear grey eyes on Steve’s face all the while. “Want you to fuck me.”

Bucky’s look goes half lidded, hand still on Steve’s cock squeezing in tighter. “Wanna go all the way already, huh?”

_God_ , he’s awful sometimes. Steve buries his face in the pillows again, words coming out muffled. “Not like we haven’t done it before, and- we have enough time.” Or they will, if Bucky gets a move on. 

Grinning, the other man does just that, crawling his way up from sitting on his stomach to be pressed between Steve’s spread legs instead. He gives Steve’s hair a smacked kiss even while reaching up a hand above him to snag the slick and a condom from where they’ve been stowed away unused in the bedside drawer. Not anymore- Steve’s counting on getting a _good_ use out of them this morning. 

Bucky’s more than generous with the lube considering how loose Steve is from just his tongue already, but with how he starts off with two fingers instead of just the one- Steve gasps and thinks maybe that was a good call. Bucky busies himself with kissing Steve’s neck, most likely avoiding his mouth because of where his has just been, but frankly- Bucky hasn’t kissed him in far too long, and Steve doesn’t want to wait another second for it, shyness be damned. 

So, while Bucky’s working the first few of his fingers to fuck in and out of him, Steve lets out a sound to prompt Bucky to meet his eyes and uses that to his advantage to draw him in for a kiss that makes up for every morning they’d ever had to miss out on this before. Steve’s not the only one that moans into it- like this, scooted up, the ample bulge in Bucky’s briefs is easily accessible for Steve to press his hand over, even while part of Bucky’s is continuing to press inside of him. 

Bucky was right when he said they didn’t need this- but goddamn, if Steve hadn’t missed it. Not having to hide is damn well worth it if he gets to have Bucky like this, hot and heavy on top of him- hopefully soon, inside him. 

It’ll be sooner than later, it seems- Bucky’s third finger is tucking it’s way inside, slide a little bit tighter but still easy enough for the sting to be sighed away by Bucky’s tongue slipping into Steve’s mouth in the meantime. 

Steve’s no pillow princess (or would it be prince?), but right here, right now- he’s more than content to lay back on said pillows and let Bucky take care of things, especially when how Bucky does so is by pressing up firmly against his prostate. He shudders through the sensation, both hands scrabbling up to find purchase on broad, mismatched shoulders. “Buck,” he says hoarsely, crying out again when Bucky brushes against it a second time. “Buck- please.” 

Bucky just hums and holds Steve’s hip down with the hand currently not between his thighs, spread out wide with the width of Bucky’s waist and weight braced on his knees. He knows _exactly_ what he’s doing, but still feigns innocence anyways. “What, sweetheart? I’m just trying to get you stretched out.”

_Stretching is the issue once again_ , Steve wryly thinks, but he can only hold onto that thought for a moment before Bucky is twisting his fingers and fucking them in what feels to be a final time, deep and deliberate. Steve decides to ask again anyways, just to be sure. Because Bucky’s a jerk, but he always gives in if Steve asks particularly sweet. 

He hooks his legs behind Bucky’s back, tucking them against the thickness of his thighs and holding him in tighter. “Please,” he says. Then, hopefully, “Fuck me?”

Bucky bites back a smile while he pretends to consider. “Well, since you asked so nicely….” He lets the smile slip free at the same time his fingers do from between Steve’s legs. “Ready to go get it, tiger?”

Steve’s slightly fucked out from all the teasing that’s been doled out so far, but still has it in him (no pun intended) to give that line the groan it deserves, smacking Bucky on the flesh side of his shoulders while the brunette lets out a laugh and leans up to push his briefs down and roll the condom on so he’s able to position himself correctly. The correct position being here, the tip of his cock nudging against where Steve needs it most with the rest of his body blanketed over top of him. 

“You’re _awful_ ,” Steve says, but the effect of it softens with the way Bucky slips a hand into his hair behind where he’s got it pressed against the pillow and cradles him up for a kiss, slow and sweet in comparison to the rest of the situation they’re sharing. Steve blinks at him once they both break back from it, squinting and giving his shoulder a reprimanding squeeze that Bucky reflects with the crinkle of his eyes as he smiles wider. 

“Awfully in love with you,” he sings, voice dripping with sugar that’s over the top yet still has Steve’s insides twisting into something gooey. Like the sap Bucky always says he is.

He doesn’t have to admit that, though. “Jerk,” he grumbles instead. “Get on with it, will ya?”

Bucky snorts and kisses him again before sliding up a knee for better momentum when he begins to press his way inside. His eyes flutter when he does it, and Steve can feel his own do the same as he struggles not to fuck down at the same time Bucky fights not to fuck in- too fast, at least. Nothing could stop him from sinking inside Steve the way he is right now, not seventy years of torture or seven years of stretch marks either. 

Steve’s breathing is ragged by the time Bucky’s seated all the way in him, bottoming out with warmth of his thighs resting against the backs of Steve’s own. Bucky lets him take a minute to get used to it, stroking his flesh hand over the short, soft parts of Steve’s hair in the back when he takes the moment that’s been given to bury his head in the side of Bucky’s shoulder. 

“You good, sweetheart?” he murmurs, voice going gentle.

Steve nods and takes in a shaky breath. “Just a lot,” he says thickly. It is, physically and otherwise- Bucky’s not exactly small, and it’s been a while since their last night lying together in Wakanda, since Steve let himself have anything like this at all. 

It’s a lot, but it’s okay, though. Bucky’s warm and with him, solid as ever in a way that has never failed to make Steve feel safe damn the circumstances. Men like Bucky- who are large and sometimes loud, yet gentle and kind despite their capacity for otherwise- always have that effect, or at least Bucky always has it on Steve. 

Bucky shushes him now, giving his first shallow thrust forward. “Jesus,” he swears. “ _Steve_.”

Steve makes a soft sound, nudging his head to be buried in Bucky’s chest instead, squeezes his eyes shut when he catches sight of his own cock sandwiched between their stomachs. “Good as you remember?” he gets out. 

Bucky grunts, hips giving another thrust forward that Steve can’t help but grind down into. “Always something special with you, sunshine,” he says lowly. “Don’t know why you think I’d give a damn about you being _perfect_ when you’ve always been the whole damn package for me.” He rocks forward, this time with less of a wait in between before he repeats the motion again. “Don’t need you to be perfect for everyone else. You’re already perfect for _me_.”

Steve knows he’d be overwhelmed with how he’s feeling even without Bucky’s little mid-sex speech given how hard Bucky is _giving_ it to him now, but with things as they are…

He moves his head to again, this time to the side of Bucky’s body where the metal shoulder resides, and presses his lips to the rough skin there the same way Bucky had done to the marks on his thighs earlier. 

“Love you,” he whispers against him, muffled words ending with a moan when Bucky sinks in at an angle that hits particularly sweet. Message is clear, though. “Buck-“

“I’ve got you, baby,” Bucky promises, pace at which he’s pounding in increasing with the octave of Steve’s groaning. “I’ve got you.”

Steve’s not exactly coherent enough to answer back, not with how Bucky’s busy nailing his sweet spot- but the squeeze of his fingertips into the dimple of Bucky’s back where his hands have slid down gets it across even without words. _You always do._

There isn’t much to say after that that Bucky’s grunting as he thrusts in or Steve’s responding noises of satisfaction can’t get across. The drag of Bucky’s dick in and out of him and warm weight of him holding Steve down, spreading him out- it’s overwhelming, in a good way. 

Normally Steve’s stamina might last longer than this- the serum has proven to lend a helping hand on that front, the few times he’s had time to find out- but with circumstances as they are, that’s not where his focus lies right now. Bucky’s practically pounding him into the mattress for the first time properly since 1941, has kept Steve half fucked out the entire morning- and they’re running on a limited amount of time anyways (thankfully for brighter reasons than fear of being court martialed if caught) so when his stomach tightens in that telltale way sooner rather than later, he doesn’t do much to reel himself back in besides bump his nose against the cleft of Bucky’s chin so he won’t watch him off guard. 

Bucky knows what it means even without words, based off of his reaction. He rocks his hips in deeper and braces his weight on his metal arm so he can reach the other down between them and place a possessive hand over Steve’s neglected cock, leaking and dripping against where his sleep shirt is still bunched against his stomach and sticking to him with the slight sweat of the sex they’re having. 

“You gonna come for me, pretty?” he asks breathlessly, thumbing over the head of him and grinding his hips in hard. “Gonna let me come inside you after?” It’s all talk considering they’re using a condom (which is a loss Steve is willing to deal with as long as it makes cleanup easier), but it hits a button Steve didn’t know he needed pushed. 

It hits even harder when Bucky does the same to his prostate simultaneously, and after a few more moments that have Bucky haphazardly thrusting and hauling him closer for a kiss, Steve is tightening his legs around Bucky’s waist as the first waves of his orgasm wash over him with an accompanying whine that sees his release soaking into his now soiled shirt. 

Bucky holds his cock through it, not moving his hand until he’s helping wring the last of his release from him and shushing the over sensitive whimper that seeps its way out once he starts to come down while Bucky continues to fuck him. “Just a little longer,” he rasps, rocking in at a relentless pace. “Just lemme love on you a little more.”

Steve nods, almost knocking their noses together. “Yeah,” he sighs out, sated. “Love you, Buck.”

Bucky brushes his lips with a kiss, beard soft against his skin. “Love you back, babydoll.”

It doesn’t take long after that for Bucky to follow Steve right over the edge, easing into it with a few final thrusts and a throaty groan that gets Steve almost wanting to go again, even as Bucky collapses on top of him, condom filled and softening cock still buried inside him. 

They’re essentially stuck together like this, and Steve distantly thinks about how last night he couldn’t even bear to let Bucky touch his thigh, let alone get his head between them. They don’t seem to be much cut out for small steps, even after all of them they’ve taken together. Must be something about being soulmates. 

Bucky’s the first one to speak up after a few sleepy moments of silence and slow breathing as they both catch their breath. “How’s that for a good morning?” His voice is gravelly. 

Steve hums, still half out of it. “Is it morning still?” 

Bucky lifts his head up enough to glance at the clock. “Close enough.” They must be nearing the time to get ready though, because instead of their usual post coital cuddling, Bucky tugs on a strand of blonde instead and pats at Steve’s still thrown out thigh where marks from both Bucky’s mouth and the serum sit. “C’mon. Gotta clean up before all this come dries and my shower goes to waste.” He sighs, like what he’s about to say is a hardship. “I already have to brush my teeth again.”

Steve groans, then glares when Bucky flicks his nose for it. “You’re the one who started this in the first place,” he points out. “What happened to not making it out the door?”

Bucky shrugs with a shit eating grin. “I’m hungry,” he says. “And as nice as your ass is, a man can’t live off that alone.” He sits back enough to pull out of Steve and then roll on his back to lay next to him, patting his come-streaked stomach with a content smile. “‘Specially not a growing boy like me.”

Steve eyes his happy trail and thinks to himself that the name suits it. Makes _him_ happy, anyways, even if he doesn’t have much of one himself. The temptation to lean down and lick the lines of his release off of where they’ve dripped down to Bucky’s love handles is appealing, but he knows Bucky is right. He gets a little lazy after sex, which is a luxury he would like to enjoy again, but as things are- they have plans. Places to be, people to see. 

He sighs and watches Bucky scratch as his chest for a moment before finally deciding to move, sitting up from his position against the pillows with a stretch that he uses to strip off his now ruined shirt and begin to wipe off his stomach with it. He’ll get a washcloth in a minute, but for now he just yawns and waits for Bucky to throw him a pair of clean underwear once he gets up to toss the condom, toned legs and thick torso on display. 

Steve stares, then starts when said underwear slaps him in the face. He flushes and huffs at Bucky’s returning smile. “You’re a jerk, you know that?”

Bucky’s expression turns amused. “I do.” He exits the bedroom after that, presumably going to the bathroom and returning after a few moments with a damp cloth that he uses to wipe his own body off before throwing that to Steve as well. “You love it, though.”

Steve sighs exaggeratedly, suppressing a smile at Bucky’s over the top wink thrown at him while he tugs his new pair of underwear on. “Guess I put up with it.”

“Would say you put _out_ more than put up this morning,” Bucky ponders, grabbing a pair of jeans from the dresser while Steve finally stands up to do the same with a sweater from their closet. 

It’s nice not to have to be afraid of being naked anymore, even if he’s still a little awkward about it. He’s not naked for too long anyways, putting on his sweater and underwear before grabbing a clean pair of socks and joining Bucky at the dresses to fish out his own favorite pair of jeans. 

Bucky, for his part, has chosen to put his pants on prior to the t-shirt he’s picked out, which leaves the soft areas of his waist showing between his jeans and shirt when he stretches to pull it on. Steve’s eyes linger on them. He’s allowed to look. 

He gets to do even more than look when Bucky out of nowhere decides to tug him in for a kiss, hands going to his waist while Steve’s do the same, curling in to press the pads of his fingers into the love handles lining it. Bucky tastes like mint again, apparently having brushed his teeth again while getting the washcloth, and Steve lets him lick the taste into his mouth happily. 

The kiss doesn’t last too long considering they’re both trying not to get sidetracked, which is a shame. Steve sighs into the space between them when Bucky pulls away. “What was that for?” 

Bucky hums and shrugs with a lopsided smile, pushing up his left sleeve to rub over the parts of his shoulder he can feel. “Just felt like being sweet on my fella.” 

He doesn’t step away as Steve goes through his own steps to wrangle his way into his jeans, barely even faltering when Steve’s legs- still slightly weaker than usual from what they’d gotten up to before this- cause him to fumble while he’s hopping his way into his pants and almost fall until he grabs onto Bucky’s shoulders to stop himself. The misstep in motion finds them face to face again, this time with Steve’s palm pressed right up against where Bucky’s sleeve is pushed up to reveal the edge of his scarring. His eyes linger on that too. 

When he meets Bucky’s eyes after, the other man doesn’t seem bothered by it, simply studying his face like he’s looking for something to see. And like Bucky said earlier- he _always_ sees Steve, which makes his next words hold a weight that rivals his own. 

“You know, everyone’s bodies are different. Handle change different, too,” he says quietly, reaching down and helping button Steve’s jeans up unprompted so Steve’s hands don’t have to move from where they’re keeping them tethered together. “You ever pause to think maybe the serum didn’t get rid of those marks because they’re already perfect in the first place?”

Steve’s quiet for a moment, hands curling in to pull Bucky closer. “No,” he answers softly. “Guess I didn’t.” That’s the truth- he’s done a lot of thinking about them over the years, but none of it has been from a positive perspective. He’s not a pessimist, but... _idealist_ isn’t the word either. 

Bucky brushes his bangs back from his forehead before leaning in and pressing a kiss to the same spot. “Science doesn’t usually yield to stupid beauty standards. Serum shouldn’t either.” He cups Steve’s face in his hand and fixes him with a look. “Those marks are as much of a part of you as anything else is.” He strokes his thumb over Steve’s cheekbone before moving it to brush over the bump on his nose as well, the one he’s responsible for in the first place. “Still got your freckles. Those beauty marks. That beak of yours.” He kisses up the line of moles on Steve’s neck in between sentences. 

_Looks like a constellation_ , he always teases him, one that leads right up to one on the side of his nose. 

He doesn’t seem to be done quite yet. “Still burn when you’re out in the sun too long, don’t you? Still got those crinkles by your eyes when you smile.”

Steve swallows, throat thick. He’s not sure where this is going. “What’re you going on about, Barnes?” he says weakly, trying to sound light but words coming out a little too quiet instead. 

Bucky smiles softly. “Just trying to get it across into that thick skull if yours that your skin doesn’t have to necessarily be _perfect_ for you to be happy in it.”

Based off of how much Steve is feeling, Bucky is doing a pretty good job at that. Steve doesn’t really have the proper words to get any of it across- so he does the next best thing, pulling Bucky in for a tight hug that has the other man exhaling heavy and huffing out through his nose while he moves to hug him back. 

Steve’s response comes out muffled into the stubble on Bucky’s neck. “I know you said I don’t have to say this, but- thank you, Buck.” For loving him. For seeing him. For helping him make peace with his problems- a lot of things. Steve is his, body, mind, _and_ soul. That’s where the whole soulmates shtick comes from, isn’t it?

Bucky kisses the top of his head. “You can thank me by letting me take you out to brunch, yeah?” His voice is light but the way he strokes over the nape of Steve’s neck shows he’s feeling the momentum of the moment just as much. 

Not even noon and they’ve had now many emotional interludes? Christ. The two of them. 

Steve laughs a little wetly and lets go of Bucky only for the other man to sling an arm back around his shoulders and start herding them out towards the living room to get their shoes. They probably do need to leave soon. 

But first-

Steve catches sight of himself in the entryway mirror, a final time before they head out the door. Like this, he can’t see his flaws or any of the insecure he’d hidden, but what he _can_ see is Bucky in the mirror next to him. What he can see is how much he loves him, how much he’s loved. 

Steve doesn’t need to be perfect or at home in his skin all the time, not when he’s got Bucky- his person, his _home-_ already next to him. He doesn’t have to hide, because even if he gets lost- he can always be found. Bucky sees him, loves him, even when Steve might not like what he sees in himself. 

As they walk out the door, Bucky’s metal hand slides in Steve’s back pocket (Bucky always uses the shitty use of having to hide his prosthesis as an excuse to touch his ass), sitting right over the marks they both now know lie underneath. Steve smiles faintly and slips a hand of his own to lay on Bucky’s waist, happily feeling the swell of skin he’s grown to love so much. 

_Love handles_. Suitable name. Bucky loves him, always helps handle him, too, when he needs it. 

Steve’s not perfect. They’re both well aware of that- were well aware of it even before this morning. But, Steve thinks. If the serum, the stretch marks, the scars on Bucky’s shoulder are all how they got here, got back together- Steve doesn’t have to be a perfect person. 

Being here with Bucky, no longer hiding himself away- that’s already perfect enough.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments & kudos are what keeps the content coming, so feel free to spare what you can! as usual, i hope you enjoyed! stay safe & see you next time around (probably with a valentines day fic, if things go to plan)


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